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General discussion

MAC OS X 10.5 - How do you see any driver problems?

by jeb0007 Jan 16, 2011 10:53PM PST

Hello you MAC Techy Guys. I have never had a MAC although I am trying to sort out a friends MAC. I have only been using PC's for many many years ( Green screen IBM's to Intel i7 ) so you can imagine how different it is for me. So apologies if this has been asked a hundred time but I have searched and searched but never found a reasonable answer ( lots of silly ones )

In the Windows system there is Device manager where if a device has a problem you can inspect the driver and try and update it etc and see what the results are.

In the MAC world it does not seem to exist in the same way. I did ask this question in another MAC forum but was told.. "MAC doesn't need it" and "If the device don't work buy a different type" ... which is not really the type of technical answer that I hope you may be able to explain

Example.. in Leopard 10.5 ( I think ) I connected a USB wireless device ( Ralink ) when the MAC system was running.. There is no screen indication of any drivers being detected which it what I expected.. I looked into the system profiler and can see the USB WiFi device and it various specs. I can load the MAC Ralink software from the install disk and then look for the Application which is listed.. If I try and launch it, it says the device does not exist !!!

How do you try and see if the drivers are loaded. In Windows there is the Yellow exclamation mark but on the MAC nothing.

I guess there is a very simple explanation to this but for a new MAC user a nightmare

I do realise this sounds like a very novice question and I hope I wont feel too embarrassed when you tell me how these sort of problems are solved on a MAC OS

Thanks in advance

John

Discussion is locked

4 Posts
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As already noted,
by mrmacfixit Forum moderator Jan 17, 2011 3:39AM PST

there is no Device Manager as such in OS X.

The closest it comes to having one is the System Profiler.

There is not usually any driver issues on a Mac (note the capitalization)although these drivers do exist on the system.

Go here http://www.ralinktech.com/support.php?s=3 and download the latest drivers for the device

P

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How do you see any driver problems?
by jeb0007 Jan 17, 2011 4:41PM PST

Hello Thank you for the information.I have looked in the system profiler and the USB device is listed..

USB High-Speed Bus:
Host Controller Location: Expansion Slot
Host Controller Driver: AppleUSBEHCI
PCI Device ID: 0x3104
PCI Revision ID: 0x0086
PCI Vendor ID: 0x1106
Bus Number: 0x90

802.11 n WLAN:

Version: 1.01
Bus Power (mA): 500
Speed: Up to 480 Mb/sec
Manufacturer: Ralink
Product ID: 0x3070
Serial Number: 1.0
Vendor ID: 0x148f

Unlike the device manager in Windows, this does not tell me if the driver is loaded or not loaded so I assume it just means that the OS has found a device and read its contents,,,,,When I was searching for solutions I read on another forum that unless it is a APPLE USB device nothing will work properly so always just buy APPLE brand if things don't work which does seem a costly way to add devices. On the same forum someone was having problems with an HP printer and was told it is normal for these not to work unless you completely reinstall the OS again after formatting the HDD.

Surely this must be a common occurrence to many MAC users and seems strange that a Logical route to resolve what seems to be a good OS has been left out.. So where do I go from now,,The Driver is listed in the system/library/extended, etc ( kext ) so why does the USB device not load it??? or jhow do you force it to try ???

It there any other place I should be looking in? Thanks in advance John

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Many non-App.e USB devices work
by mrmacfixit Forum moderator Jan 17, 2011 9:58PM PST

very well with the Mac.

Did you go to the Ralink site and download the latest Mac driver?

Hopefully, the advice about HP printers was free because it certainly was not worth the bandwidth it took up.

Strangely, this problem is not a common occurrence for many mac users as almost all of the products that claim to work in OS X, usually do. Those that don't, generally do not last long.

With that USB wireless device inserted, and the latest drivers installed, how do you know that it is not working? You have not mentioned anything about attempting to access the device through the Network Preference pane. What happened when you attempted to configure the device?

P

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How do you see any driver problems?
by jeb0007 Jan 17, 2011 11:14PM PST

Hello..That is the problem as it does not appear in the Network pane. There is only the standard Ethernet NIC. If I launch the Ralink Wireless Application it opens but says that NO Device Exists

Yes I did go to the Ralink site and downloaded the driver for the USB device (RT 2870 ) and installed it. It says Installed OK, but that obviously does not mean it installed the drivers so that the USB dongle gets configured.........I have tried unplugging and re-plugging the device but there is no change. The USB device works perfect on a Windows XP and Win 7 system so the device is OK. If I look in the system profiler it shows USB High-Speed Bus:

Host Controller Location: Expansion Slot
Host Controller Driver: AppleUSBEHCI
PCI Device ID: 0x3104
PCI Revision ID: 0x0086
PCI Vendor ID: 0x1106
Bus Number: 0x90

802.11 n WLAN:

Version: 1.01
Bus Power (mA): 500
Speed: Up to 480 Mb/sec
Manufacturer: Ralink
Product ID: 0x3070
Serial Number: 1.0
Vendor ID: 0x148f

but there is nothing to indicated it linked to a driver
Regards John

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