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Boost power for PCIe USB 3 cards

W

warragul

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 19, 2016
49
4
Melbourne, Australia
My 3,1 Mac Pro has no USB 3 ports so I thought I'd get a PCIe card to fill the gap. But it needs an extra cable to supply voltages missing on the PCIe bus. By the looks of it that's only 5V for port power. Threading a 4-wire disk power cable down from the unused one in the Optical Drive box seems like overkill.
Can anyone confirm that the only voltage required is 5V, please? If so a single wire (or two) will suffice.
 
Thanks bax2003, but they don't ship outside the USA. I only discovered this once I'd filled out the paperwork.
Then I tried Inateck.de but they only sell into Europe and Canada. Nothing on Amazon.
Good price, good card. It's a pity they choose to limit themselves like that .
Thanks again.
 
warragul said:
Thanks bax2003, but they don't ship outside the USA. I only discovered this once I'd filled out the paperwork.
Then I tried Inateck.de but they only sell into Europe and Canada. Nothing on Amazon.
Good price, good card. It's a pity they choose to limit themselves like that .
Thanks again.
Click to expand...

I got mine new on eBay. So that might be a work around for you.
 
Thanks flyinmac, but the people who ship outside the USA on eBay (there aren't any listed locally) want more that the retail price just for the shipping. A guy in NY once sent me an Airport Time Capsule and it only cost ~$20 in freight, so I don't know what's going on there.
Other forums have suggested the KT4004 as a substitute. I found it on Amazon but they won't ship here (Amazon hasn't arrived here - yet - and the panic among the retailers is comical*) and the ones on eBay are too expensive.

* The local retailers have long campaigned for the $1000 GST threshold on imports to be abolished. The Tax Office says collecting GST on imports under this price is eneconomical, and getting foreign traders to collect and remit the tax is problematical. The 10% GST won't have any effect on buyers' habits because the retailers' margins are around 50%. But it's just simple vindictiveness by the retailers and the public understand this. Nevertheless the threshold has gone.
 
I can understand your frustration there. I'm part of the united states. And they still charge me more to get things here (I'm on the other side of Canada).

It would be cheaper to ship from Washington to Florida. Yet I'm closer. Lol.

And many companies won't ship here because according to them, they only ship to the United States. It doesn't do any good to remind them that I am in the United States.

Some companies insist that they can't ship anything to us in the U.S. Mail. Never mind that we have a very major U.S. Mail Hub here. And numerous post offices in most towns. My town has about 6 post offices (that I know of - probably more) within 5 minutes driving distance of each other.

And, of course, they forget that all their merchandise (imported from China) came here first to be sorted and distributed before it got shipped to whatever state they're in. Without us, they wouldn't have the merchandise to begin with.

Fuel is worse. We actually pay more for gasoline. Even though we are where it is being produced. In fact, it actually gets cheaper as you get further away from the gasoline distribution hubs.

One major refiner has their distribution hub in my town. The most expensive place to buy gas is from the gas pumps in their parking lot. It is cheaper to buy their gas if you go to the places they have to deliver the fuel, than it is to buy it right where they store it.

And the further away from the distribution hub you get, the cheaper the gas is. I would think that the further you get, it should cost more, because they had the expense of trucking the fuel to those locations. But they charge us more because we're closer to the source. Lol.

I used to work for a fuel company. And I could get gas in the parking lot and at an employee discount, and charge it to my account.

I'd get 10 cents of gas (cheaper back then) to get me to another gas station further away where it was cheaper. My boss finally questioned me once. And I told him that he didn't pay me enough to be able to afford to buy the gas directly. So I'd go and buy it as far away as I could get on 10 cents of gasoline. Usually saved me about two dollars on a tank of gas to buy it somewhere else.

So I can definitely understand illogical pricing.
 
Thank you very much, carpsafari. Just ordered 2 of them. They'll take until next month to get here but such is the joy of "free" postage from Honkers.
Obviously I used the wrong search argument when I checked eBay; a lesson learned. Broader is better.
 
I have the inateck card and its so annoying, every time the computer sleeps all the drives disconnect, especially if you leave it for a prolonged time when it wakes to check for mail etc you get back to 25-30 disconnected drive alerts which I'm sure is no good for the drives. It also renders all Bluetooth devices useless, apple mouse is slow as hell had to stop using it.
 
warragul said:
Thanks bax2003, but they don't ship outside the USA. I only discovered this once I'd filled out the paperwork.
Then I tried Inateck.de but they only sell into Europe and Canada. Nothing on Amazon.
Good price, good card. It's a pity they choose to limit themselves like that .
Thanks again.
Click to expand...

Don't know why quite a few guys here said Amazon don't ship outside US, or super expensive shipping. I ordered my KT4004 on Amazon, they ship it to Hong Kong, and shipping cost is about $5.5, which is acceptable.
IMG_2399.jpg

The link is actually in my signature. And I just check that, still the same price and same shipping cost.
 
Well, h9826790, when I tried to fill out the order form there was no other country option except the US of A. Perhaps I'm not familiar enough to work Amazon properly.
As for postage, does $68 sound a bit much for a $27 item (eBay US)? I'll take $5.5 any day. I'm surprised, given Hong Kong's reputation as a warehouse for the East, that you couldn't get it locally. I get most of my stuff from there or Shenzen.

Thanks for the tip-off, tomscott 1988. I had seen that issue in connection with other cards. It's really annoying when that happens.

carpsafari. Given that Hong Kong is just up the road a bit from where I live you'd think that delivery would be pretty quick. But there's a time lag introduced by the Great Maelstrom that is the Sydney Mail Exchange. Sometimes items simply do not emerge. But then, I've watched my purchases ping-pong between mail depots here in Melbourne; approaching and receding. The Internet (eBay, Amazon, et al) is a golden opportunity for the parcel post people and yet they are losing money.
Enough complaining, for now. It's late and I'm tired.

Edit: speling
 
warragul said:
I'm surprised, given Hong Kong's reputation as a warehouse for the East, that you couldn't get it locally. I get most of my stuff from there or Shenzen.
Click to expand...

I'm surprised that he ordered a usb 3.0 card in the USA, while he could get the one I showed for less...he might think that when you buy it from far away its better?
 
tomscott1988 said:
I have the inateck card and its so annoying, every time the computer sleeps all the drives disconnect, especially if you leave it for a prolonged time when it wakes to check for mail etc you get back to 25-30 disconnected drive alerts which I'm sure is no good for the drives. It also renders all Bluetooth devices useless, apple mouse is slow as hell had to stop using it.
Click to expand...

Haven't ever had that trouble with my Inatek card in my 2006 Mac Pro.

I have every USB port occupied on both the card and the Mac Pro. Solid and reliable for me.

I don't know why it's being problematic for you. There might be someone who could help you troubleshoot it.
 
flyinmac said:
Haven't ever had that trouble with my Inatek card in my 2006 Mac Pro.

I have every USB port occupied on both the card and the Mac Pro. Solid and reliable for me.

I don't know why it's being problematic for you. There might be someone who could help you troubleshoot it.
Click to expand...

Card is working like a charm.
 
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You know, tomscott1988, your issues are starting to sound like a driver version problem.
Have you done any research in this area?
Thread derailment alert!
 
The problem is the only drivers on the website are for windows it should "just work"

Funny my 2008 mac pro had no issues with the card my 2010 has the issues described above. Really annoying.

Sorry for thread derailment.
 
tomscott1988 said:
I have the inateck card and its so annoying, every time the computer sleeps all the drives disconnect, especially if you leave it for a prolonged time when it wakes to check for mail etc you get back to 25-30 disconnected drive alerts which I'm sure is no good for the drives. It also renders all Bluetooth devices useless, apple mouse is slow as hell had to stop using it.
Click to expand...

The messages are annoying, but don't cause any harm to the drives or files. There was an OS update around Mavericks I think, it caused the message to appear to all USB 3.0 external drives, including built-in ports on Apples. They later patched that back out for built-in ports, but it still happens for PCIe cards. Sonnet made a KEXT that "fixes" it, but all it is really doing is suppressing the notification.

BT interference is a real and serious problem, but it is not limited to the Inateck. AFAIK all the USB 3.0 cards cause it.
 
Well, time to say thanks everybody for your contributions. I love forums, you meet the nicest people.
I've ordered a couple of the no-extra-power cards. The last thing I ordered from Hong Kong took 23 days.
Delayed gratification - again!
 
flowrider said:
IMHO, the best card is the HighPoint RocketU 1144C:

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...classic-mac-pro.1501482/page-71#post-23901055

Lou
Click to expand...
I have this card too & am very happy with it. I am in the UK but ordered from USA Amazon. The advantage of this card is that there are four separate controllers one for each USB 3.0 port instead of a single shared controller on the cheaper cards. It's the difference between a 4-port switch & a 4-port hub. All four ports can operate at maximum speed or more practically copying from one USB 3.0 disk to another will not be throttled to half speed.
 
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