usb 2.0 for macs

[reddrag0n]

I was hunting around, and was wondering if anyone has heard of this card? StarTech.com Value 6 Port USB 2.0 PCI Card. Would this be an ok card for the Sawtooth and up G4's and G5's?

[aquamac]

Chances are it will be, can't tell from the picture, might have an ALI chipset, which should work. All NEC chipsets work OK. Certainly a good price.

[reddrag0n]

here is the actual link for the card, 6 port usb and according the the picture, it's running an ALI chipset. and also by this website, it says it's mac compliant.
- Minimum Processor Requirements
PC - Intel Pentium 2 at 400MHz or faster, Intel Celeron at 900MHz or faster, AMD Athlon of any speed
Mac - G3 original processor or faster
- OS Compatibility
Windows 98SE/ME/2000/XP/Server 2003 and up
Mac OS X and up

[rampancy]

I have a "No Name" USB 2.0 PCI card using an ALi chipset much like that card (4 external ports, 2 internal ports) and it works fine for me on my FW 400 MDD. If you can, I suggest you use it with 10.4.6, as it seems to have solved the chronic issue with deep sleep support on USB 2.0 PCI cards with devices plugged in.

The nice thing about a card like that is the two internal ports; you can use one for a Bluetooth dongle and another for a 802.11g dongle (good luck finding one that can work with a Mac, though).

[reddrag0n]

cool, thanks. and yes, i am running 10.4.6 and as for the 802.11g, try the D-link DWL G122. According to Aqua-mac, it has to be minimum rev. B1 in order for the drivers for mac to work properly.
G4 54g mod

[rampancy]

I was considering going that route for retrofitting 802.11g on my MDD (that was why I wanted the internal ports on my card on my Mac in the first place), but how prevalent are the rev. B1 devices? IIRC, D-Link has made as many as four different revisions of the DWL-G122. I wish they kept some sort of consistency in the chipset they used.

Eventually I ended up getting a Motorola PCI card for $27 at RadioShack (uh, I mean "The Source"). It's a little clumsy due to the external antenna and the fact that it takes up a PCI slot, but it works perfectly.

[aquamac]

Found this while I was cruising the net,

Mac pci usb and firewire compatibility depends mainly on the chipsets being used but can also depend on how the pci card is designed.
Some pci cards work in later Beige G3's but not in earlier Beige G3's for example.
Also some pci cards won't work in G5's.
NEC usb chips and Agere firewire chips seem to have the greatest compatibility with devices in osx and os9.

Usb pci cards using the NEC, ALI, TI or OPTI chipsets should all be ok in osx and os9.
For os9 usb 1.1 support install the Applebuilt USB extensions from the USB_DDK_1.5.5f1 and also install USB Storage 1.3.5.
Jaguar might need drivers to enable USB 2.0 support.
I have an NEC based usb card that has no problems in osx and os9.

VIA usb chipsets are only supported in osx and the VIA osx driver is really only for G4's.
VIA usb chipsets might be supported in Tiger without the VIA osx driver seeing that Tiger has an inbuilt UHCI driver.
On os9 VIA usb chipsets aren't supported at all.

Firewire pci cards using the NEC, ALI, TI or Agere (Lucent) chipsets should all be ok in osx and os9.
I have an Agere (Lucent) based firewire card that has no problems in osx and os9.

VIA firewire chips as far as I can tell have problems with osx.
I have a VIA usb firewire combo card and the firewire works in os9 but doesn't work in osx.
My VIA firewire vt6306 chip revision number is 46.
Revision 46 and lower of the vt6306 chip have a bug which misreports the maximum packet size.
The vt6306 chip works on os9 (probably because os9 ignores the maximum packet size) and doesn't work on osx (probably because osx doesn't ignore the maximum packet size).
If your revision is above 46 the firewire will probably work in osx.

The VIA usb chips use UHCI.
UHCI wasn't supported in osx until Tiger so a UHCI driver is required with Panther or Jaguar.

For the iMac Core Duo Apple uses Agere firewire chips and Intel usb UHCI chips.

[aquamac]

Hey I picked up two USB 2 cards yesterday with an Ali chip on board by a make called "Mentor", I couldn't believe the price, only £8 each. This compares with £29 for the belkins I usually use. On top of that they are 6 port (4 outside & 2 inside) & the belkins are only 5 port (4 outside & 1 inside). They look well made & work fine, and the instructions say that they support deep sleep on macs. Strangely enough they didn't say anything of mac support on the outside of the box & I thought I was taking a chance, but after I had fitted them I decided to read the instructions (isn't that always the way) & they said "Supports sleep in OS X 10.1.5 & up".

I will see if I can find a picture.

www.disking.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=4_213&products_id=45845634&osCsid=05fb4e5841335437e69350e06f0e28b3



Have just realised that it is one & the same card that Red Dragon Posted about above!

Well there's nothing like going over the same ground, but I can tell you they work!!

[reddrag0n]

so, were they a good investment? i'm just wondering if the dlinks (bluetooth and 54G) fit together on the inside ports?

[aquamac]

Well at that price, you can't go too far wrong, but they work fine & yes with some short extension leads on the inside that run to in between the metal case & outer plastic side panel you can install Bluetooth & a 54g USB adapter. One word of caution, the ports on the outside of the card are very close together, so if you have a number of wide plugs you may not get them inserted next to each other.
But all in all, top marks!

[reddrag0n]

Alright, sweet. I'll keep that in mind. Hopefully all goes well when i get all the parts installed and everything working.

[rampancy]

Thanks for the chipset info, aquamac. For anyone interested, Startech also sells a 60 x 60 x 25 mm fan which looks like it'd be a good candidate for a PSU fan replacement project...