ASIX AX88178 Assembly instructions

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Copyright (C) 2010-2016 Reserved by ASIX Electronics Corporation, All Rights Reserved.
AX88178
Mac OS X Driver Installation Guide
Revision 3.10
Nov. 10th, 2016
AX88178 Mac OS X Driver Installation Guide

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Copyright (C) 2010-2016 Reserved by ASIX Electronics Corporation, All Rights Reserved.
AX88178
Mac OS X Driver Installation Guide
Revision History
Revision
Date
Description
1.00
2010/08/12
Initial release.
1.10
2011/04/27
Modified the script files in Appendix.
1.20
2011/08/15
Added Mac OS X 10.7 support.
1.30
2011/09/14
Modified the description to exclude Mac OS X 10.4 support.
1.31
2011/10/13
Rearranged the document format and added more detailed driver
installation/uninstallation procedures information.
1.32
2011/10/14
1. Moved some Section 1 descriptions to Appendix A.
2.00
2012/08/03
1. Changed the document name to “AX88178 Mac OSX Driver Installation
Guide”.
2. Removed AX88772B/AX88772A/AX88760/AX88772 related information.
3. Added Appendix C "Apple Mac OSX Native USB to LAN Drivers Supported
Devices List".
4. Modified some descriptions in Section 1 and 2.
2.01
2012/08/22
1. Added Section 4 “Troubleshooting”.
2.02
2012/09/26
1. Modified some descriptions in Section 1.
3.00
2014/02/26
1. Modified to support Mac OS X 10.9 driver installer.
2. Modified some descriptions in Section 1, 2, 3.
3. Replaced Section 4-1 “Driver Installation Failure on OS X 10.8 Issue” with
new 4-1 "How to identify the Vendor ID and Product ID of your USB
dongle?".
4. Added Section 4-2 “How to identify the installed Mac OS X driver
revision?”.
5. Removed Appendix A “Script Files Descriptions” and Appendix B
“AX88178 Script Files”.
3.10
2016/11/10
1. Modified some descriptions for Mac OS 10.12 native driver supporting
changes.
2. Modified some descriptions and pictures to meet the latest Mac OS X
driver installer.
3. Added Section 4-3.

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Copyright (C) 2010-2016 Reserved by ASIX Electronics Corporation, All Rights Reserved.
AX88178
Mac OS X Driver Installation Guide
Contents
1. Introduction .............................................................................4
2. Driver Installation Procedures...............................................4
3. Driver Uninstallation Procedures........................................11
4. Troubleshooting....................................................................12
4-1. How to identify the Vendor ID and Product ID of your USB dongle?..12
4-2. How to identify the installed Mac OS X driver revision?.....................13
4-3. How to isolate driver failure issues after upgrading Mac OS system?14
Appendix A. Apple Mac OS X Native USB to LAN Drivers
Supported Devices List ................................................................15

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Copyright (C) 2010-2016 Reserved by ASIX Electronics Corporation, All Rights Reserved.
AX88178
Mac OS X Driver Installation Guide
1. Introduction
This document contains the installation and uninstallation information of ASIX’s AX88178 Mac OS X 10.5 to
10.8 driver and Mac OS X 10.9 to 10.12 driver.
The native “AppleUSBGigEthernet”driver on Mac OS X 10.5 to 10.11 systems or the native
“AppleUSBEthernet”driver on Mac OS 10.12 and later systems already support some of major AX88178
dongles so users need not to manually install ASIX’s standard AX88178 Mac OSX driver if you don’t have any
issue on Apple’s native driver.
Some of AX88178 dongles are not supported by the native “AppleUSBGigEthernet”driver on Mac OS X 10.5
to 10.11 systems or the native “AppleUSBEthernet”driver on Mac OS 10.12 and later systems so users
MUST manually install ASIX’s AX88178 standard Mac OSX driver.
Some USB to LAN dongles have manufacturers’own VID/PID. If both Apple’s native driver and ASIX’s
standard driver couldn’t work fine with your USB-to-LAN dongle, please contact the support guys of your
USB-to-LAN dongle manufacturer for further support.
2. Driver Installation Procedures
The AX88178 Mac OSX driver installation package is “AX88178.dmg”.
The following is an example of ASIX’s AX88178 Mac OSX driver installation procedures.
Step 1: Click the “AX88178.dmg”, the following “AX88178”virtual disk will be appeared on the Desktop of
your Mac OSX system. (This “AX88178”virtual disk will be auto-removed after rebooting Mac OSX
system.)

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Copyright (C) 2010-2016 Reserved by ASIX Electronics Corporation, All Rights Reserved.
AX88178
Mac OS X Driver Installation Guide
Step 2: Click the “AX88178_vx.x.x.pkg”(“x.x.x”is driver installer revision number), the following driver setup
dialog will appear. Click the [Continue] button to start the installation operation and follow the
instructions to continue the installation.
Step 3: Click the [Install] button to continue the installation operation.

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Copyright (C) 2010-2016 Reserved by ASIX Electronics Corporation, All Rights Reserved.
AX88178
Mac OS X Driver Installation Guide
Step 4: You might need to enter your user/password during the driver installation.
Step 5: Click the [Continue Installation] button to continue the installation operation.
Step 6: Click the [Restart] button to restart Mac OSX system to take effect the revised driver installation.

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Copyright (C) 2010-2016 Reserved by ASIX Electronics Corporation, All Rights Reserved.
AX88178
Mac OS X Driver Installation Guide
Step 7: After booting up your Mac OSX system, plug your AX88178 USB dongle onto the USB port of your
Mac OSX system and refer to the following information to double check if your USB dongle had been
identified properly by Mac OSX system and the AX88178 Mac OSX driver was installed correctly or
not.
(1) You can check the Vendor/Product ID information of your USB dongle from here.

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Copyright (C) 2010-2016 Reserved by ASIX Electronics Corporation, All Rights Reserved.
AX88178
Mac OS X Driver Installation Guide
(2) You can check the installed AX88178 Mac OSX driver version information by running the
“kextstat”command or from the “Software -> Extensions”console as below figure.
Tsengteki-MacBook-Air:~ allan$ kextstat
Index Refs Address Size Wired Name (Version) <Linked Against>
…..
142 0 0xffffff7f80d88000 0x9000 0x9000 com.asix.driver.ax88178 (1.2.0) 65827D49-E30C-
39F2-9C26-DC7CE994D8A3 <50 40 7 5 4 3 1>
143 0 0xffffff7f826a2000 0x18000 0x18000 com.apple.driver.usb.ethernet.asix (5.0.0)
0DD762E9-3C44-39DB-BB30-6E69218E823A <79 78 50 39 5 4 3 1>
…..

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Copyright (C) 2010-2016 Reserved by ASIX Electronics Corporation, All Rights Reserved.
AX88178
Mac OS X Driver Installation Guide
Step 8: Please refer to below figure to add a new “USB Gigabit Ethernet”network interface and then press
the [Apply] button to take effect the new network interface.

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Copyright (C) 2010-2016 Reserved by ASIX Electronics Corporation, All Rights Reserved.
AX88178
Mac OS X Driver Installation Guide
Step 9: The new “USB Gigabit Ethernet”driver should be ready now.

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Copyright (C) 2010-2016 Reserved by ASIX Electronics Corporation, All Rights Reserved.
AX88178
Mac OS X Driver Installation Guide
3. Driver Uninstallation Procedures
The following is an example of ASIX’s AX88178 Mac OSX driver uninstallation procedures.
Step 1: Click the “AX88178.dmg”, the following “AX88178”virtual disk will be appeared on the Desktop of
your Mac OSX system. (This “AX88178”virtual disk will be auto-removed after rebooting Mac OSX
system.)
Step 2: Click the “AX88178_uninstall_vxxx”utility (xxx is the revision number of the driver uninstaller utility)
to uninstall ASIX’s AX88178 Mac OSX driver.

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Copyright (C) 2010-2016 Reserved by ASIX Electronics Corporation, All Rights Reserved.
AX88178
Mac OS X Driver Installation Guide
4. Troubleshooting
(The figures in this section are examples for your reference)
Please refer to Section 2 & 4 to provide us the captured driver installation screens step-by-step and run “sudo
dmesg”command to get the driver debug messages for further investigation if you have any problems on
AX88178 Mac OS X driver installation.
4-1. How to identify the Vendor ID and Product ID of your USB dongle?
Please refer to below picture to make sure if the Vendor ID and Product ID of your USB dongle are ASIX’s
default values or not? If no, please contact the manufacturer of your USB dongle to get a proper driver directly.
The following are the AX88178 default VID/PID.
ASIX Product
ASIX Vendor ID
Product ID
AX88178
0B95h
1780h
Note: If you cannot find your AX88178 device under the USB Device Tree, your AX88178 dongle might have
some potential hardware compatibility issues on your target platform. Please contact the manufacturer
support guys of your suspected AX88178 dongle to isolate your issues.

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Copyright (C) 2010-2016 Reserved by ASIX Electronics Corporation, All Rights Reserved.
AX88178
Mac OS X Driver Installation Guide
4-2. How to identify the installed Mac OS X driver revision?
Please refer to below picture to identify the driver revision of the installed AX88178 Mac OS X driver.
Or run the “kextstat”or “sudo dmesg”commands in the Terminal console to identify the driver revision of the
installed AX88178 Mac OS X driver.
Tsengteki-MacBook-Air:~ allan$ kextstat
Index Refs Address Size Wired Name (Version) <Linked Against>
…..
142 0 0xffffff7f80d88000 0x9000 0x9000 com.asix.driver.ax88178 (1.2.0) 65827D49-E30C-39F2-9C26-
DC7CE994D8A3 <50 40 7 5 4 3 1>
143 0 0xffffff7f826a2000 0x18000 0x18000 com.apple.driver.usb.ethernet.asix (5.0.0) 0DD762E9-3C44-
39DB-BB30-6E69218E823A <79 78 50 39 5 4 3 1>
…..
asixs-MacBook-Pro:~ allan$ sudo dmesg
…
AX88178: start - Version number 1.2.0
AX88178: Input buffers 64, Output buffers 64
AX88178: setupChip - PHY ID regs: c912 001c
AX88178: enable - Exit
monitorLinkStatus - Link is up at 1000 Mbps - Full Duplex (PHY regs 5,6:0xc1e1,0x0000)
monitorLinkStatus - Link is down.
AX88178::monitorLinkStatus - Link down
monitorLinkStatus - Link is up at 1000 Mbps - Full Duplex (PHY regs 5,6:0xc1e1,0x0000)
…

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Copyright (C) 2010-2016 Reserved by ASIX Electronics Corporation, All Rights Reserved.
AX88178
Mac OS X Driver Installation Guide
4-3. How to isolate driver failure issues after upgrading Mac OS system?
Please refer to below procedures to isolate the driver failure issues after upgrading Mac OS system.
1. Please refer to Section 3 to uninstall clearly the previous revision AX88178 Mac OSx driver firstly.
2. Please refer to Section 2 to install the latest AX88178 Mac OSx driver to see if the driver can work fine
now or not?
3. If you still have problems, please unplug/re-plug your AX88178 dongle to see if it can improve your issues
or not?
4. If you still have problems, please refer to Section 4-1 to make usre if your issues are caused by potential
hardware compatibility issues on your suspected AX88178 dongle or not? If yes, please contact the
manufacturer support guys of your suspected AX88178 dongle to isolate your issues,
5. If you still have problems, please refer to Section 2 & 4 to provide ASIX support ([email protected].tw)
the captured driver installation screens step-by-step and run “sudo dmesg”command to get the driver
debug messages for further investigation.

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Copyright (C) 2010-2016 Reserved by ASIX Electronics Corporation, All Rights Reserved.
AX88178
Mac OS X Driver Installation Guide
Appendix A. Apple Mac OS X Native USB to LAN Drivers
Supported Devices List
The Apple native driver “AppleUSBGigEthernet”on Mac OS X 10.5 to 10.11 systems supports the following
AX88178 USB-to-LAN dongles, and the Apple native driver “AppleUSBEthernet”on Mac OS X 10.5 to 10.11
systems supports the following AX88772A/AX88760/AX88772 USB-to-LAN dongles.
On Mac OS 10.12 and later systems, the Apple “AppleUSBGigEthernet”native driver is already removed and
the new Apple “AppleUSBEthernet”native driver supports all these AX88178/AX88772A/AX88760/AX88772
USB-to-LAN dongles.
Vendor
Model Name
VID
PID
Comments
ASIX Electronics Corp.
AX88178
0B95h
1780h
ASIX Electronics Corp.
AX88772A/AX88760
0B95h
772Ah
ASIX Electronics Corp.
AX88772
0B95h
7720h
Apple
Apple USB Ethernet Adapter
05ACh
1402h
Linksys
USB200M
13B1h
0018h
D-Link Corp.
DUB-E100 Fast Ethernet
2001h
3C05h
Linksys
USB1000 (AX88178)
1737h
0039h
Belkin Components
F5D5055 (AX88178)
050Dh
5055h
MelCo., Inc.
USB Gigabit Ethernet (AX88178)
0411h
006Eh
I-O Data Device, Inc.
ETG-US2 (AX88178)
04BBh
0930h
For the other USB-to-LAN dongles with ASIX solution inside, please download the latest ASIX’s standard Mac
OS X drivers from ASIX web site (http://www.asix.com.tw/download.php?sub=driver). If you still have
problems, please contact the support guys of your USB-to-LAN dongle manufacturer for further support.
Note: Users should get proper driver from the manufacturer of your USB-to-LAN dongle if both Apple’s native
driver and ASIX’s standard driver couldn’t work with your USB-to-LAN dongle.

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Copyright (C) 2010-2016 Reserved by ASIX Electronics Corporation, All Rights Reserved.
AX88178
Mac OS X Driver Installation Guide
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Hsinchu, Taiwan, R.O.C.
TEL: +886-3-5799500
FAX: +886-3-5799558
Email: suppo[email protected]w
Web: http://www.asix.com.tw
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