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USB 3.0 not recognized; System thinks it only has USB 2.0

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Joined
Jan 14, 2012
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55
Motherboard
Gigabyte Z68X
CPU
i7-2600K
Graphics
Vega 64
Mac
  1. Mac Pro
The problem: My system seems to only think it has USB 2.0 ports. I definitely have USB 3.0 ports. I guess I've just never realized this was a problem because I never needed USB 3.0 for any devices, but now I do and that device won't work at all, saying explicitly in-software that it only works with USB 3.0. I go to About This Mac > System Report and lo and behold, the system report shows only USB 2.0 bus.

I followed this guide, since everyone who used it said it worked for them. It did not work for me. https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/solved-high-sierra-10-13-4-usb-3-0-problems.250272/

I have gone through MultiBeast and tried enabling all four USB options (3rd Party USB 3.0, 7/8/9 Series USB Support, Remove XHCI USB Port Limit, and USBInjectAll) and none of them did anything. I used Clover Configurator and checked FixUSB in the Acpi tab and that did nothing. I tried clicking the "Inject" button on the Devices page in the USB section and that did nothing. I tried manually installing USBInjectAll.kext via Kext Helper b7 and that did nothing.

I'm at the end of my rope with this machine. With this problem and well over a year of the random freezing issue (https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/high-sierra-random-freezing.243150/page-27), I don't really know what to do anymore.

Any help is appreciated.
 
I have a pretty strong hunch and I'm wondering if anyone can confirm or reject it. If it's true, I don't think it's fixable, but I really hope that's not true.

AFAIK, your SMBIOS is pretty much tied to your processor, right? On a hunch, I followed my processor specs on EveryMac.com and found out that it's linked to the "iMac Core i7" series from 2011, which matches the SMBIOS I'm using. It turns out that model never had USB 3.0 ports, so my hunch is that no matter what I do, I can't override that hardware expectation regardless of what's on my motherboard.

Please tell me I'm wrong (or if I'm right, how to actually solve this problem).
 
I have a pretty strong hunch and I'm wondering if anyone can confirm or reject it. If it's true, I don't think it's fixable, but I really hope that's not true.

AFAIK, your SMBIOS is pretty much tied to your processor, right? On a hunch, I followed my processor specs on EveryMac.com and found out that it's linked to the "iMac Core i7" series from 2011, which matches the SMBIOS I'm using. It turns out that model never had USB 3.0 ports, so my hunch is that no matter what I do, I can't override that hardware expectation regardless of what's on my motherboard.

Please tell me I'm wrong (or if I'm right, how to actually solve this problem).

Hello there.

You are probably wrong :) Depending on which macOS version you are running, there is a solution that may help...

The main Intel Z68 chipset only provides USB2.0/1.0 ports. The USB3.0 ports on your motherboard are controlled by a 3rd Party controller by a company called Etron. This doesn't figure in the 15-port limit Apple imposes and the ports are not easily configurable. However, you can activate them using the GenericXHCIUSB.kext that is included in MultiBeast.

This should work well with your 'older' motherboard. If you want to test it, install it to Drive: Library/Extensions. Remember to back-up any vital data beforehand :thumbup:
 
Hello there.

You are probably wrong :) Depending on which macOS version you are running, there is a solution that may help...

The main Intel Z68 chipset only provides USB2.0/1.0 ports. The USB3.0 ports on your motherboard are controlled by a 3rd Party controller by a company called Etron. This doesn't figure in the 15-port limit Apple imposes and the ports are not easily configurable. However, you can activate them using the GenericXHCIUSB.kext that is included in MultiBeast.

This should work well with your 'older' motherboard. If you want to test it, install it to Drive: Library/Extensions. Remember to back-up any vital data beforehand :thumbup:

The latest High Sierra Multibeast version has a "3rd Party USB Support" option and a "USBInjectAll" option. I checked both of those boxes and built, but that didn't change anything. System Report is still showing two USB 2.0 buses and that's it. Just in case that's just a System Report problem and not a functional problem, I checked my device and it still says "USB 3 is required for this device. Your capture device is not attached to a USB 3 port." It definitely is. This issue is driving me absolutely mad.
 
The latest High Sierra Multibeast version has a "3rd Party USB Support" option and a "USBInjectAll" option. I checked both of those boxes and built, but that didn't change anything. System Report is still showing two USB 2.0 buses and that's it. Just in case that's just a System Report problem and not a functional problem, I checked my device and it still says "USB 3 is required for this device. Your capture device is not attached to a USB 3 port." It definitely is. This issue is driving me absolutely mad.

Okay.

Other Hackintosh users with an Etron USB chipset have reported that using the mXHCD.kext driver instead of GenericUSBXHCI.kext works. I can only confirm this by doing the same searches you can. :thumbup:

GenericUSBXHCI.kext has not been updated since 2015 and often does not work with later macOS versions. NEC, Renesas and CalDigital often produced Mac drivers for their hardware, but it's rare these days. Etron only supply windows drivers for their EJ168.

There will always come a time when you can no-longer find drivers for older hardware components that work with the latest operating systems. Hardware is often deprecated. For sure Apple themselves only support a limited few.

If you enjoy delving deeper, IORegistryExplorer will show you what is going on here.

:)
 
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Okay.

Other Hackintosh users with an Etron USB chipset have reported that using the mXHCD.kext driver instead of GenericUSBXHCI.kext works. I can only confirm this by doing the same searches you can. :thumbup:

GenericUSBXHCI.kext has not been updated since 2015 and often does not work with later macOS versions. NEC, Renesas and CalDigital often produced Mac drivers for their hardware, but it's rare these days. Etron only supply windows drivers for their EJ168.

There will always come a time when you can no-longer find drivers for older hardware components that work with the latest operating systems. Hardware is often deprecated. For sure Apple themselves only support a limited few.

If you enjoy delving deeper, IORegistryExplorer will show you what is going on here.

:)
mXHCD.kext didn't work on my H67N-USB3-B3 build even though the dev claimed it supports Nec Renesas uPD720200 up to macOS Mojave.

There is a linux source for the driver, but I haven't seen any other porting of it to macOS.
http://lxr.linux.no/linux+v2.6.31.14/drivers/usb/host/xhci-hcd.c
 
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So I'm completely scrapping the idea of trying to get this mobo's USB ports working, instead picking up a "natively recognized" USB 3.0 PCI-E card (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JFR2H64/?tag=tonymacx86com-20)

If that doesn't work, I'm guessing I can get a new motherboard and just transfer everything over like I'm building a new machine? That sounds like a massive headache.
 
mXHCD.kext didn't work on my H67N-USB3-B3 build even though the dev claimed it supports Nec Renesas uPD720200 up to macOS Mojave.

There is a linux source for the driver, but I haven't seen any other porting of it to macOS.
http://lxr.linux.no/linux+v2.6.31.14/drivers/usb/host/xhci-hcd.c

Thanks for the feedback.

I was lucky I think. Way back with my Z68 project I just used GenericUSBXHCI.kext. However, of course, that was with a much earlier OS X version. I didn't really want to recommend mXHCD.kext generally because I don't know its provenance and the results of the Mac build seem a bit hit-and-miss.

:)
 
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