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Working Kext for Killer E2200

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Hmm. I used the latest Xcode, but I'm not a registered developer, so I'm not sure I have the option to properly sign it. My language of choice has always been C/C++, but I'm -very- new to OSX development, and don't know how to do most things in Xcode yet.

Are you using a laptop, or a desktop? What version of OSX are you using?

OH! I think I know what the issue is.

Try copying the debug version of the kext to

System/Library/Extensions/IONetworkingFamily.Kext/Contents/PlugIns

You right-click/option-click on IONetworkingFamily.kext, and click "Show Contents" to see what's inside the kext. Copy the Debug ALX kext into the plugins folder. Then, run kext wizard., and repair permissions. This should be done in addition to adding the kext to S/L/E.

Let me know how that works. ^_~


any chance you have run across a working kext for killerE2400 yet? How do I get the en0 enabled? when i run ifconfig it only gives me an en1: (i am using an apple ethernet usb dongle) but cannot download any apps from the app store.

wondering if you have any more time to tinker with this?

thanks!
 
Hey guys. I've used your resources for a very long time, and now I finally have something to contribute in return. I recently purchased an MSI GT70-2OD laptop. Every PC and laptop I have all run Windows, OSX, and Linux, and I depend on that capability because I'm a computer repair guy, and I sometimes have to do work on exotic systems or do something that requires software exclusive to one platform or another. After quite a bit of work getting OSX installed on the laptop I remembered that it has killer doubleshot wireless and LAN (E2200), and that finding a driver for either of those was going to be nigh impossible. I started looking for a solution, and decided to install linux in the meantime. Lo and behold, the E2200 didn't work in Linux Mint 15 either. I was pretty disappointed, until I found a patch that someone developed to allow the E2200 to work in linux through the ALX driver.

Apparently the ALX driver already did support the E2200, it just didn't know it. At this point, I went back to OSX, downloaded the source for Shailua's ALX driver, manually added the patch, and compiled for mavericks. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough. It would see the hardware properly (PCI addresses and such), and even did load and associate (Which was a very good sign), but it would always fail halfway through the initialization. A couple days worth of digging later, I found out that I had to modify some low-level driver code to make it succeed.

A bit of explanation is in order, I think. With the normal AR8161s, and other ALX compatible chips, there is just the MII (Controller) and the PHY (Physical Link/Port). The PHY answers to the MII, and gives you your link. The MII talks to the PCI bus. (Normally) Only with the Killer, there is that fancy UDP offload engine in the way, and the MII always says that it's busy, because it's only expecting to get commands from the killer controller, and not the system. Part of what I did is, I disabled the check to see if the MII is busy, in order to override that. Accessing the MII will always succeed, even if it -really- is busy.

I AM NOT LIABLE IF THIS BREAKS YOUR SYSTEM OR FRIES YOUR NIC, and this is very important in this case because I -REMOVED- a FAILSAFE in the DRIVER CODE. That said, it works wonderfully for me, and while I didn't remove anything major, i would only recommend testing this driver on the KILLER E2200, and nothing else. The only killer I've used it on is the onboard E2200 on the MSI GT70-2OD. I'm using it on one of my gigabyte hacks' AR8161, and it does work, but I don't know how stable it is yet.

I don't know enough about Xcode to change the version number, and I'm too lazy to clean up the hardware descriptions (The E2200 shows up in System Information as an AR8172 Fast Ethernet. It still runs at gigabit speeds, so it's just a cosmetic thing.) and to be honest, I'm done working on it, because it works great, and I don't have the time to take it any farther. I'm including the modified source code, and the ALX Kext, compiled for Mavericks. If you need it for an older version of OSX, you can open the project in Xcode, change the build target to whichever version you need, and then hit build. it should require no editing for OSX versions 10.7 to 10.9.

EDIT: To install this kext, copy the DEBUG version of the kext to S/L/E, and also copy it into the plugins folder inside IONetworkingFamily.kext. Either use kext wizard, or simply repair permissions on the disk afterwards, then reboot. ^_^

Worked PERFECT!!!!
Thank you so much!
 
any chance you have run across a working kext for killerE2400 yet? How do I get the en0 enabled? when i run ifconfig it only gives me an en1: (i am using an apple ethernet usb dongle) but cannot download any apps from the app store.

wondering if you have any more time to tinker with this?

thanks!

Hey shakakoa, I just managed to get ethernet on my msi Z170A GAMING M5 which has a killerE2400
I used this kext and the kext wizard
 
guys ... sorry I'm pretty new on make hackintosh, this is my first time with it, btw... I've this rig

gigabyte z170n gaming 5 moba itx
balistix 16 gb ddr4 ram
evga geforce 950 sc


I've bought the pieces recommended from the forum, and incredibly first time I run the setup internet connection worked fine.
Than I've run multibiest to have my drivers setup, I didn't chose anything because I've seen that internet connection was ok...
Then when the hackintosh had rebooted I hadn't any internet connection and I've tried to navigate through the directories you said but I didn't find anything, neither IONetworkingFamily.kext .
So far I notices that on multibiest it could be selected the drivers for the killer network e2200... Now I'm reinstall all the stuff... so please could someone help me to make it work?
 
As I have the Gigabyte H170-Gaming 3 motherboard for my recent Hackintosh, which is also equipped with this Killer E2200, I made a search in the forum for 'Killer' in order to check whether other members here encountered with a common problem with this chip and got to this thread. It's great to hear that members have managed to actually use that chip in their Hackintosh build. I just want to note something about this chip, as some of you might encounter this common problem further on:

I'm myself a PC technician and usually don't need much assistance. But when I picked the H170-Gaming 3, a guy from the lab of that store has told me that this motherboard is great, though it has a little flaw with the built-in Ethernet Killer chip. He told me that they found that as this motherboard was meant for gamers, Gigabyte decided to equip it with the Killer chip because this particular chip was designed to utilize the maximum bandwidth of your network for better gaming experience. Think of it as a quality-of-service feature so the gamer will always have the highest bandwidth for his computer. But the only problem is when you have other computers in your house that are dependent on your router or switch, as once the Killer chip is connect to the network, they will suffer from BAD bandwidth experience. And I'm talking about 10kbps even if they're all connected to your 1 Gigabit (1000Mbps) switch.

In my house I have my main computer (the recent Hackintosh I just built which is running both Windows and MacOS), my mini-Hackintosh next to it, another computer as a backup server in another room, another computer in the living room, and yet another computer in yet another room (I know, too many computers :lol:). All these computer are connected via LAN cables to a 1 Gigabit switch, which is connected to my router that gives the internet connection for the entire house. The router/internet works in 100Mbps, but the switch gives the entire house a bandwidth of 1 Gigabit (again, 1000Mbps). Which is super for transferring files between computers.

The moment I hooked the H170-Gaming 3 motherboard to the switch and turned ON the computer, at the very post screens, the bandwidth of all the other computers dropped to about 10-12kbps! The guy from the lab has prepared me for that and said that it's not something in the operating system that might be fixed by a driver further on. It behaves like this as a feature that exists in this chip itself, even if you're in the BIOS! It's like "One chip to rule them all".

To see if it really happens where the computer is turned on, I turned it OFF and made a copy of some large files between my mini-Hackintosh and my backup server. The transfer rate was as it should normally be with a 1 Gigabit switch. And during the copy I turned ON my main computer. And guess what? The bandwidth dropped again to about 10-12kbps! In other tests when I began the copy After my main computer was ON, the copy dialogue box hanged too long at the 'calculating' message before the actual copy even begun. At the moment there's no way of limiting that chip in the BIOS.

To workaround this I first disabled the on-board Killer chip in the BIOS, and picked a dedicated PCI-Express Ethernet adapter which is the Intel® Gigabit CT Desktop Newegg | Amazon. First thing the problem was solved! But whats most - this adapter is even compatible with Hackintosh and works great right after installing the Intel kexts from MultiBeast!

So that's that. Most users probably won't notice this if they're running a single computer in their house. But should you have more computers like me and encounter this, check if one of your computers is equipped with the Killer chip. If so then there's your answer and solution altogether.

Hope someone will find this useful.
 
Last edited:
As I have the Gigabyte H170-Gaming 3 motherboard for my recent Hackintosh, which is also equipped with this Killer E2200, I made a search in the forum for 'Killer' in order to check whether other members here encountered with a common problem with this chip and got to this thread. It's great to hear that members have managed to actually use that chip in their Hackintosh build. I just want to note something about this chip, as some of you might encounter this common problem further on:

I'm myself a PC technician and usually don't need much assistance. But when I picked the H170-Gaming 3, a guy from the lab of that store has told me that this motherboard is great, though it has a little flaw with the built-in Ethernet Killer chip. He told me that they found that as this motherboard was meant for gamers, Gigabyte decided to equip it with the Killer chip because this particular chip was designed to utilize the maximum bandwidth of your network for better gaming experience. Think of it as a quality-of-service feature so the gamer will always have the highest bandwidth for his computer. But the only problem is when you have other computers in your house that are dependent on your router or switch, as once the Killer chip is connect to the network, they will suffer from BAD bandwidth experience. And I'm talking about 10kbps even if they're all connected to your 1 Gigabit (1000Mbps) switch.

In my house I have my main computer (the recent Hackintosh I just built which is running both Windows and MacOS), my mini-Hackintosh next to it, another computer as a backup server in another room, another computer in the living room, and yet another computer in yet another room (I know, too many computers :lol:). All these computer are connected via LAN cables to a 1 Gigabit switch, which is connected to my router that gives the internet connection for the entire house. The router/internet works in 100Mbps, but the switch gives the entire house a bandwidth of 1 Gigabit (again, 1000Mbps). Which is super for transferring files between computers.

The moment I hooked the H170-Gaming 3 motherboard to the switch and turned ON the computer, at the very post screens, the bandwidth of all the other computers dropped to about 10-12kbps! The guy from the lab has prepared me for that and said that it's not something in the operating system that might be fixed by a driver further on. It behaves like this as a feature that exists in this chip itself, even if you're in the BIOS! It's like "One chip to rule them all".

To see if it really happens where the computer is turned on, I turned it OFF and made a copy of some large files between my mini-Hackintosh and my backup server. The transfer rate was as it should normally be with a 1 Gigabit switch. And during the copy I turned ON my main computer. And guess what? The bandwidth dropped again to about 10-12kbps! In other tests when I began the copy After my main computer was ON, the copy dialogue box hanged too long at the 'calculating' message before the actual copy even begun. At the moment there's no way of limiting that chip in the BIOS.

To workaround this I first disabled the on-board Killer chip in the BIOS, and picked a dedicated PCI-Express Ethernet adapter which is the Intel® Gigabit CT Desktop Newegg | Amazon. First thing the problem was solved! But whats most - this adapter is even compatible with Hackintosh and works great right after installing the Intel kexts from MultiBeast!

So that's that. Most users probably won't notice this if they're running a single computer in their house. But should you have more computers like me and encounter this, check if one of your computers is equipped with the Killer chip. If so then there's your answer and solution altogether.

Hope someone will find this useful.

Hey man, thanks a lot for your post. I hadn't found anybody else with similar issues. I'm having a similar situation with my Killer E2205. As soon as the computer connects to the network, latency goes through the roof, and upload speeds go down to something like 0.3 Mbps... I've tried installing and reinstalling different versions of the kexts and pretty much every solution to network issues I've found, but nothing has worked.

The funny thing is, download speeds are normal. Did the same happen in your case? Also, when I connect through a VPN, everything goes back to normal, which is maddening, because it makes me think the problem is not hardware related. But I don't know anymore... I think I'm gonna buy the card you recommended ad give it a try. At this point, I'd sacrifice a goat to get this damn thing working as it was before I "upgraded" to Sierra.
 
Hi there Uberchango,

Glad you found my post somewhat helpful. The download speed on my main machine which has the Killer chip was fine too as far as I remember, just other equipment on my home network that had problems from the moment the Killer chip was connected to the network. It's not an easy task figuring out this irritating scenario so I completely understand what you mean by saying that it's maddening. But gladly the guy from the lab had prepared me in advanced for this as he has more experience with these Killer chip boards.

I'm not sure how you tested the VPN connection, because if you tried a VPN via wireless then you bypassed the physical LAN port. But anyhow I also think that it might be a software/firmware matter but how I see it it's not something from the OS but from the very BIOS/UEFI, as the bandwidth problems appeared at the very moment I turned the Killer chip machine ON, while I was in its BIOS/UEFI settings and along the installation of the operating system. So I guess that only flashing the BIOS/UEFI with an updated firmware might fix the issue. That only if and when Gigabyte will actually release such firmware update to fix this specific problem.

Anyway go with a dedicated Ethernet card and you'd be just fine. I'd recommend the one I used as it supports MacOS almost out of the box. And don't forget to DISABLE the Killer chip in the BIOS/UEFI so even if you'd connect a LAN cable to it accidentally it won't 'trash' your network.

Let me know how it works out for you.

Cheers
 
Hey guys, I've used this guide but every time I shut down or reboot the system it kernel panics. I think the culprit is this ethernet kext. Here's the crash log:
Code:
Anonymous UUID:       BE86F994-C690-3354-EE85-3E281746BE73

Sat Nov 11 08:07:22 2017

*** Panic Report ***
panic(cpu 0 caller 0xffffff801cb35bfb): "Element 0xffffff80366c7340 from zone kalloc.32 caught being freed to wrong zone kalloc.16\n"@/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/xnu/xnu-3789.71.6/osfmk/kern/zalloc.c:2656
Backtrace (CPU 0), Frame : Return Address
0xffffff912c96bbd0 : 0xffffff801caea56c
0xffffff912c96bc50 : 0xffffff801cb35bfb
0xffffff912c96bd30 : 0xffffff801d082bf6
0xffffff912c96bd50 : 0xffffff7f9f81bae8
0xffffff912c96bd70 : 0xffffff7f9f820a52
0xffffff912c96bda0 : 0xffffff7f9f82098e
0xffffff912c96be00 : 0xffffff7f9f820909
0xffffff912c96be30 : 0xffffff7f9f81dada
0xffffff912c96beb0 : 0xffffff7f9f81db52
0xffffff912c96bee0 : 0xffffff7f9f81f417
0xffffff912c96bf40 : 0xffffff801d1122a1
0xffffff912c96bf80 : 0xffffff801d112028
0xffffff912c96bfb0 : 0xffffff801ca988f7
      Kernel Extensions in backtrace:
         com.insanelymac.ALXEthernet(1.0.2)[C19FB641-ED4F-35CC-92F1-E2A843B18848]@0xffffff7f9f81a000->0xffffff7f9f831fff
            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IONetworkingFamily(3.2)[6326DB88-5330-3F0C-91F6-D478AB5E7503]@0xffffff7f9e2f2000
            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.9)[CFB76611-4641-3329-A09C-A7194EC155BC]@0xffffff7f9d331000

BSD process name corresponding to current thread: kernel_task

Mac OS version:
16G1036

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 16.7.0: Wed Oct  4 00:17:00 PDT 2017; root:xnu-3789.71.6~1/RELEASE_X86_64
Kernel UUID: F487A842-6E21-37AB-83C3-83F951218734
Kernel slide:     0x000000001c800000
Kernel text base: 0xffffff801ca00000
__HIB  text base: 0xffffff801c900000
System model name: iMac14,2 (Mac-27ADBB7B4CEE8E61)

System uptime in nanoseconds: 552292603742
last loaded kext at 32955045679: com.apple.filesystems.msdosfs    1.10 (addr 0xffffff7f9e15f000, size 69632)
last unloaded kext at 327004242530: com.apple.driver.AppleIntelLpssGspi    3.0.60 (addr 0xffffff7f9f2fa000, size 45056)
loaded kexts:
com.nvidia.web.GeForceWeb    10.1.8
com.nvidia.web.NVDAGM100HalWeb    10.1.8
com.nvidia.web.NVDAResmanWeb    10.1.8
org.hwsensors.driver.LPCSensors    1759
org.hwsensors.driver.GPUSensors    1759
org.voodoo.driver.VoodooHDA    2.9.0d10
org.hwsensors.driver.CPUSensors    1759
org.hwsensors.driver.ACPISensors    1759
com.insanelymac.ALXEthernet    1.0.2
org.netkas.driver.FakeSMC    1759
com.apple.filesystems.msdosfs    1.10
com.apple.filesystems.autofs    3.0
com.apple.driver.pmtelemetry    1
com.apple.iokit.IOUserEthernet    1.0.1
com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothSerialManager    5.0.5f1
com.apple.driver.AppleUpstreamUserClient    3.6.4
com.apple.Dont_Steal_Mac_OS_X    7.0.0
com.apple.driver.AppleMCCSControl    1.3.4
com.apple.driver.Apple16X50ACPI    3.2
com.apple.driver.AppleHV    1
com.apple.driver.ACPI_SMC_PlatformPlugin    1.0.0
com.apple.driver.AppleIntelSlowAdaptiveClocking    4.0.0
com.apple.driver.AppleLPC    3.1
com.apple.driver.AppleOSXWatchdog    1
com.apple.driver.MaxTranserSizeOverrideDriver    404.50.6
com.apple.driver.AppleRAID    5.1.0
com.apple.AppleFSCompression.AppleFSCompressionTypeDataless    1.0.0d1
com.apple.AppleFSCompression.AppleFSCompressionTypeZlib    1.0.0
com.apple.BootCache    40
com.apple.filesystems.hfs.kext    366.70.3
com.apple.iokit.IOAHCIBlockStorage    295.20.1
com.apple.driver.AppleAHCIPort    326.60.1
com.apple.driver.AppleACPIButtons    5.0
com.apple.driver.AppleRTC    2.0
com.apple.driver.AppleHPET    1.8
com.apple.driver.AppleSMBIOS    2.1
com.apple.driver.AppleAPIC    1.7
com.apple.nke.applicationfirewall    172
com.apple.security.quarantine    3
com.apple.security.TMSafetyNet    8
com.apple.kext.triggers    1.0
com.apple.iokit.IOSurface    159.10
com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothFamily    5.0.5f1
com.apple.driver.AppleSMBusController    1.0.18d1
com.apple.iokit.IOSMBusFamily    1.1
com.apple.iokit.IOAcceleratorFamily2    311.15
com.apple.AppleGraphicsDeviceControl    3.14.49
com.apple.driver.AppleSSE    1.0
com.apple.driver.Apple16X50Serial    3.2
com.apple.iokit.IOSerialFamily    11
com.apple.driver.IOPlatformPluginLegacy    1.0.0
com.apple.iokit.IOSlowAdaptiveClockingFamily    1.0.0
com.apple.driver.IOPlatformPluginFamily    6.0.0d8
com.apple.iokit.IONDRVSupport    516.1
com.apple.driver.AppleHDAController    279.48
com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily    515.3
com.apple.iokit.IOHDAFamily    279.48
com.apple.driver.AppleSMC    3.1.9
com.apple.driver.usb.IOUSBHostHIDDevice    1.1
com.apple.iokit.IOSCSIBlockCommandsDevice    394.50.1
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBMassStorageDriver    131.60.1
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBAudio    308.7
com.apple.iokit.IOAudioFamily    205.15
com.apple.vecLib.kext    1.2.0
com.apple.driver.usb.networking    5.0.0
com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBHostCompositeDevice    1.1
com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBHub    1.1
com.apple.filesystems.hfs.encodings.kext    1
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBMergeNub    900.4.1
com.apple.driver.AppleUSBHostMergeProperties    1.1
com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBHostPacketFilter    1.0
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBFamily    900.4.1
com.apple.iokit.IOSCSIMultimediaCommandsDevice    394.50.1
com.apple.iokit.IOBDStorageFamily    1.8
com.apple.iokit.IODVDStorageFamily    1.8
com.apple.iokit.IOCDStorageFamily    1.8
com.apple.iokit.IOAHCISerialATAPI    266.50.1
com.apple.iokit.IOSCSIArchitectureModelFamily    394.50.1
com.apple.iokit.IONetworkingFamily    3.2
com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBEHCIPCI    1.1
com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBEHCI    1.1
com.apple.iokit.IOAHCIFamily    288
com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBXHCIPCI    1.1
com.apple.driver.usb.AppleUSBXHCI    1.1
com.apple.driver.AppleEFINVRAM    2.1
com.apple.driver.AppleEFIRuntime    2.1
com.apple.iokit.IOHIDFamily    2.0.0
com.apple.security.sandbox    300.0
com.apple.kext.AppleMatch    1.0.0d1
com.apple.driver.AppleKeyStore    2
com.apple.driver.AppleMobileFileIntegrity    1.0.5
com.apple.driver.AppleCredentialManager    1.0
com.apple.driver.KernelRelayHost    1
com.apple.iokit.IOUSBHostFamily    1.1
com.apple.driver.AppleBusPowerController    1.0
com.apple.driver.DiskImages    444.50.16
com.apple.iokit.IOStorageFamily    2.1
com.apple.iokit.IOReportFamily    31
com.apple.driver.AppleFDEKeyStore    28.30
com.apple.driver.AppleACPIPlatform    5.0
com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily    2.9
com.apple.iokit.IOACPIFamily    1.4
com.apple.kec.pthread    1
com.apple.kec.corecrypto    1.0
com.apple.kec.Libm    1
Model: iMac14,2, BootROM IM142.0118.B20, 4 processors, Intel Core i5, 3,4 GHz, 8 GB, SMC 2.15f7
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti, PCIe, 2047 MB
Memory Module: BANK 0/DIMM1, 4 GB, DDR3, 1600 MHz, Crucial Technology, BLS4G3D1609DS1S00.
Memory Module: BANK 1/DIMM1, 4 GB, DDR3, 1600 MHz, Crucial Technology, BLS4G3D1609DS1S00.
Network Service: Ethernet, Ethernet, en0
Serial ATA Device: WDC WD5000AADS-00S9B0, 500,11 GB
Serial ATA Device: TEAC DV-518GS
Serial ATA Device: WDC WD5000AADS-00S9B0, 500,11 GB
USB Device: USB 3.0 Bus
USB Device: USB3.0 Card Reader
USB Device: USB DISK 2.0
USB Device: Microsoft® LifeCam Studio(TM)
USB Device: Gaming Mouse G502
USB Device: Keyboard -- QuickFire XT
USB Device: Back-UPS XS 1400U  FW:926.T1 .I USB FW:T1
USB Device: USB 2.0 Bus
USB Device: Hub
USB Device: USB 2.0 Bus
USB Device: Hub
Thunderbolt Bus:
 
Hey guys, I've used this guide but every time I shut down or reboot the system it kernel panics. I think the culprit is this ethernet kext. Here's the crash log...

Hi RobyIndie,

Tried to figuring out what's going on in this log but need more information. What network card are you using, a dedicated one or the Killer one that comes with the board? I'm currently using MacOS Sierra (not High Sierra) and never encountered this issue before. Could be related to incompatible driver of the High Sierra build version that you're using (16G1036) along with your hardware. It would be helpful to know which parts are present in your rig for further investigation.
 
Hi RobyIndie,

Tried to figuring out what's going on in this log but need more information. What network card are you using, a dedicated one or the Killer one that comes with the board? I'm currently using MacOS Sierra (not High Sierra) and never encountered this issue before. Could be related to incompatible driver of the High Sierra build version that you're using (16G1036) along with your hardware. It would be helpful to know which parts are present in your rig for further investigation.
You can see all the parts in my rig in my signature. Click on the link in My PC. Sorry if I don’t link it directly, I’m on mobile. The only LAN adapter I have is the integrated Killer one anyway. And wait, am I not on Sierra? I thought all I installed (drivers and OS) was Sierra
 
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