PowerTower Pro USB card - no go

[LaPorta]

Hey everyone,

Been trying to get a USB card to work on my PT Pro. The card is a StarTech 4 port one. It is supposed to work with only the built on 8.6 drivers. I installed the USB Card Support 1.4.1 drivers. So far, the card works in that a USB system shows up in the system profiler, but nothing connected to it works. Here is what it says when an Apple Pro Keyboard is connected (photo). So it appears that SOMETHING is being read, but I can’t get anything functioning.

Any suggestions?

 

[Cory5412]

I've never ended up using USB in anything lower than 9, save for keyboard and mouse (only) on the original iMac.

Long ago in a universe far-far away when I swapped the Belkin USB card I had out of my blue-white and into my 7300, it ended up not working until I (and, this may or may not have been necessary, entirely, but I was at a good stopping point anyway) reinstalled the entire OS.

Perhaps pop in your 8.6 disc and run the installer again just to make 100% sure all the USB support stuff got in?

 

[LaPorta]

I'll see if that might help. I don't have an 8.6 installer unfortunately, just 8.5 with 8.6 updaters. I can try and see if that helps. Of course, that USB Card Support installer is stand-alone, and is supposed to have everything.

 

[Cory5412]

Quick question:

What was the file you installed? Was it "USB Mass Storage Support 1.3.5" or something similar?

I have that file on VTools, Because Reasons, and it looks like that file (presuming it is what it says on the tin)_ only supports storage devices. I'm sure it's relatively generic, but there's a list in the readme file of just eight unique devices they knew were supported:

• Hagiwara FlashGate SmartMedia r/w for USB
  
• Imation USB SuperDisk
  
• Iomega USB Zip
  
• LaCie USB Hard Drive
  
• Teac USB Floppy
  
• VST USB Floppy
  
• Yano USB Floppy
  
• YE-Data USB Floppy
  

8.1-8.6 would've had built-in support for keyboards and mice on the internal USB buses.

What if you try plugging in a hard disk or a flash drive?

 

[LaPorta]

Nothing, I did try a CF reader. Perhaps I am just missing something crucial that I am unaware of.

 

[Cory5412]

Not being very experienced with 8.6, admittedly, I would put 9.1 on it and see what happens.

It appears that your USB card is recognized, the computer knows what it is, but doesn't have drivers either for your particular kind of storage device (I would also consider trying something even more generic than a card reader.)

 

[LaPorta]

I used the Apple Pro Mouse and that also wouldn't work. I think I will try and install 9 on a separate partition and see if that fixes things. Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[Cory5412]

I want to note again that the readme for the USB Support file I found makes it pretty explicitly clear that it's only for storage. I don't know off hand if there are any other USB support packages available, and I didn't see a response to this query:

What was the file you installed? Was it "USB Mass Storage Support 1.3.5" or something similar?

 

[LaPorta]

USB Card Support 1.4.1

Sorry, it was in my first post

 

[Cory5412]

I haven't seen that particular file, so I can't attest to what it claims to do. I would be careful presuming that it supports things like hubs or keyboards and mice unless it's explicitly stated.

 

[EvilCapitalist]

The card is a StarTech 4 port one.

Do you have any pictures of the card?  In my tests on the TAM side of the house I went through probably ~20 or so cards that "should" have worked but due to the 6500/TAM/Gazelle's kludgey platform they didn't.  There were even some cards that would recognize correctly as yours did in my Beige G3 but wouldn't recognize any devices plugged in to them, and this was in 9.2.