Well, I'm at it again. I bought a cheapo (Myson Century 8818) IDE to USB adapter so I could use my "extra" hard drive and all the rest of the stuff I have (3 DVD drives now!) on the B&W.
Naturally, after burning one DVD on the internal USB buss, I decided I needed a new PCI card to get USB 2.0 (or a firewire drive adapter, working on that, too!).
So I get the card, box says Mac OS X compatible, and no joy. System profiler sees the adapter (high speed USB buss appears), but NO external device. Or I should say, once in a while it will magically appear, but I can't access it (my old Apple CD-ROM showed up, but no drive icon on the desktop, for instance).
What gives here, this is driving me nuts! USB card hav a VIA chipset made in China (duh, whta isn't these days!) and the onlyh identifiers I can find are CEFCC s-010B.
Anybody been this route? I've ordered a USB encolsure from OWC, will see if that work, but I'd still like access to some hard drives!
Thanks!
Peter
My B&W had the same problem with an ubergeneric VIA chipset USB card. It was recognized by the system profiler, but, well, USB 1.1 devices, like a MIDI adapter, "showed up" intermittently and "worked", but the computer acted, well, weird. (Sound and video stuttering, high CPU usage, etc. USB 2.0 devices like a hard disk or an iPod, on the other hand, would sometimes show up in the system profiler, but would never mount or otherwise be recognized.
The only solution seems to be to find a different USB card, preferably one with a different chipset.
--Peace
NEC chipset cards work great. I got one for $16.00 at a computer show. it's a 4+1, 4 external and one internal port, USB 2.0. the damn thing didnt even come with drivers for mac, or is even supported, but it lives happily in my B&W without a single complaint. works with every USB device I throw at it.
btw, it was a generic cheap brand. "the best ports connection" I think was the name of the brand.
hell, it even works flawlessly under Linux, and delivers 100% speed. best damn purchace I have ever made.
actually, while googling, I found a couple pics. note my card is green, not red, and the box it came in has a pic of where it slants in the back, with the internal USB port on the slant.:
the front
and the back
actually, here's a pic of the box I found:
hope this helps.
-digital
That is actually made by Syba. I have a couple of their Firewire/USB2.0 cards with an Ali chipset. Work great in PCs and Macs.
The usb card i use in my B&W has the exact same chipset the mainboard has on it, if you look at your USB ports and follow the lines to the chipset you will see what kind it is, i simply cant open mine where it sits unless i take it all apart. my desk is cramed lol.
opti?
that's what chipset mine has. specificaly, it's 82C861, and according to sys info, it rides on a PCI interface.
that's like the built in video in my PBG3. it also identifies it's self as a PCI card.
I also have a spare USB 1.1 opti firelink card I got from another mac, and when I stuck it in this system, it and the built in USB ports seem exactly identical.
-digital
thats it!
Thanks guys!
Anybody need a couple USB 2.0 PCI cards for a PC?
Right now it's "seeing" my IDE to USB adapter (mass storage device), but nothing shows up on the desktop.
Peter