Weird problem with internal card readers

[arkmay_arsonspay]

Hi all - haven't done much in the way of posting here over the years, which is a credit to the gang who put together all of the Hackintosh guides, as my machine has been running pretty much without problems for many years.

I recently swapped out an old USB2 hub which was on the blink, and replaced it with a USB3 device (Aukey 7 port - very nice) which after fiddling around a bit with kexts now works perfectly. Then, after seeing them mentioned here, I decided to replace my USB2 multi-card reader with an internal one - I went with this Sabrent CR-UIN3 which had the benefit of stating that it's compatible with OS X.

However, although the USB3 port on the device works perfectly at the full 5Gb/s, none of the card reader slots do anything - there's no light on the front of the device for power or activity, and nothing shows up in the System Report.
I tried the device in a separate Windows 10 machine, and everything worked fine, so I assumed it wasn't really OS X compatible and arranged a return, replacing it with a Rosewill RDCR-11003 which other have stated works out-of-the box. It doesn't, and exhibits the same behaviour - USB3 port is OK, card slots are not.

What's perhaps most perplexing is that there is a USB3 SD reader built into my monitor - I'd never used it before as I hadn't set up USB3, but have now tested it and that works perfectly as a card reader - shows up in the System Report as such, mounts the card, and transfers data without problems.

I have tried disconnecting the monitor's USB to see if there was an enumeration issue (such as the OS only allowing one card reader) but that didn't help; I also disconnected all other USB devices (except keyboard and mouse) to see if that made a difference but no.

My BIOS (U1J) gives me options to enable the two on-board USB3 devices (one for the back ports, and one for the front) and these are both enabled, and I also have options for XHCI hand-off and EHCI hand-off, again, both of which are enabled.

I'm kind of stuck now - two separate devices which are known to be working both exhibit the same problem, which points to something else in my setup - but can anyone help suggest things that I can look at to pin down (and resolve!) the problem??

Many thanks,

Mark

 

[nobodynose]

Hi all - haven't done much in the way of posting here over the years, which is a credit to the gang who put together all of the Hackintosh guides, as my machine has been running pretty much without problems for many years.

What version of OS X are you running? Have you ever installed the Generic 3rd Party USB 3.0 kext? Which version?

 

[arkmay_arsonspay]

Sorry, my signature seemed to have lost most of the info I had in it, so I didn't think to include the OS details again. I'm currently on 10.10.3 (Yosemite).

I did try Rehabman's 'GenericUSBXHCI.kext' (https://bitbucket.org/RehabMan/os-x-generic-usb3) but didn't have much joy - eventually got the USB3 ports working using 'Patched AppleUSBXHCI v710.4.11'. Given that the USB3 ports are working OK (on the motherboard, and on the Rosewill card reader) and because the USB3 SD card reader on the monitor is working fine, I assumed that it was unlikely to be related to the USB XHCI kexts - so didn't think to include this on my original post, sorry.

If there's anyone else with this card reader, please could you confirm whether the card slots show up in the BIOS anywhere (or as a boot device) or whether the power light comes on before it's booted into OSX - mine doesn't show up anywhere, and doesn't light up at all...

Cheers

 

[arkmay_arsonspay]

OK, after much frustration and research, I found a post somewhere that suggested connecting the reader to the motherboard USB header after booting. Notwithstanding that this could be a quick way to fry the motherboard and/or reader and/or other components, I decided to give it a go... and blow me down with a feather, the card reader shows up perfectly in System Information and transfers data perfectly:


Of course, nothing is straightforward. Once the computer went to sleep and was woken up, the card reader disappeared again!

Argh! What could be going on? Maybe the driver is putting the device into some kind of low power/eco mode which stops it being recognised?? I'm at my wits end with this

 

[RehabMan]

OK, after much frustration and research, I found a post somewhere that suggested connecting the reader to the motherboard USB header after booting. Notwithstanding that this could be a quick way to fry the motherboard and/or reader and/or other components, I decided to give it a go... and blow me down with a feather, the card reader shows up perfectly in System Information and transfers data perfectly:
View attachment 232042

Of course, nothing is straightforward. Once the computer went to sleep and was woken up, the card reader disappeared again!

Argh! What could be going on? Maybe the driver is putting the device into some kind of low power/eco mode which stops it being recognised?? I'm at my wits end with this

Is the port attached to the USB card reader correctly marked internal? (UsbConnector=255)
See guide: https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/guide-creating-a-custom-ssdt-for-usbinjectall-kext.211311/

 

[arkmay_arsonspay]

Thanks RehabMan - looks like a beast of a series of posts which I've not previously seen (I'm in awe as always at your patience and ability to write such clear and detailed guide - your support across the whole forum is very much appreciated!), so I'll go off and work through them and will see where that gets me.

(Also sort of tempted to buy a supported PCI USB3 card to see if that works any easier...)

 

[RehabMan]

Thanks RehabMan - looks like a beast of a series of posts which I've not previously seen (I'm in awe as always at your patience and ability to write such clear and detailed guide - your support across the whole forum is very much appreciated!), so I'll go off and work through them and will see where that gets me.

(Also sort of tempted to buy a supported PCI USB3 card to see if that works any easier...)

Note that the guide I mention only applies to 10.11.x+ and 7-series USB3 or later.
6-series USB3 is known to be unreliable (are you using GenericUSBXHCI or patching AppleUSBXHCI)?

 

[arkmay_arsonspay]

To follow up for posterity, I got no further with getting the on-board USB 3.0 header to work properly, either using GenericUSBXHCI or patched AppleUSBXHCI - although it was with the latter that I managed to get the USB 3.0 ports to work.

I bit the bullet and bought an Inateck KT4006 2-port PCIe adapter and everything works perfectly - Yosemite supports the card chipset, and the reader shows up and operates at full speed for both the front USB 3.0 port and the card readers. The card readers also show up in the BIOS which never happened with the on-board header.

Don't know if there are any morals or lessons to this - but hopefully it may help prevent someone else from going through the same frustrations that I did!

 

[Apples2Oranges]

Having the same problem on x99 designare ex with a startech multi-card reader. Called gigabyte and they said to try enabling ERP in the BIOS. That worked for a few reboots and then nothing. Back to the drawing board...

 

[Apples2Oranges]

After being stuck like you @arkmay_arsonspay, I bought the innateck KT4006 as well. It worked great! Unlike the onboard headers, it works on power up like it should without disconnecting and reconnecting. Thanks for posting your solution as it helped me out!

Using this Innateck: http://www.ebay.com/itm/272407988175?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

with this Startech internal reader: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B011NLXC5O/?tag=tonymacx86com-20

On this board: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01FY8CC4E/?tag=tonymacx86com-20