01-27-2009, 03:15 PM

I installed an Ultra USB 2.0 PCI card in my G4 (1.25 MDD) tower, and made the mistake of installing a driver for the VIA chipset it uses after reading about it in a couple forums.

The card seemed to work ok when I just decided to "plug & play" after buying it.
But after installing the driver (stupidly) from the VIA website, I have all kinds of issues.

Now, when I boot the computer up, I have no keyboard or mouse (both USB) control unless I un-plug them first.

The system also won't recognize any other USB devices I have plugged in during startup, unless I un-plug them and plug them back in (which is a pain in the .... every time I boot up!)

How can I reverse the install of this driver? There was no "uninstall" file in the driver when I downloaded it.
Is there a preference file or something else I can delete on my hard drive that will get rid of it?
I'm really hoping I don't have to wipe the drive clean & start over to get the tower to work right...

Thanks for the suggestions in advance!

01-27-2009, 03:25 PM

Do you recall the name (or number) of the driver? Even the first two or three letters would help. Use Cmd-F from Finder to locate the driver and remove it manually. You may also need to remove each and every file, eg. any relevant .plist, associated with the PCI device, and start again from scratch.

01-27-2009, 04:50 PM

I found the ".pkg" file of the driver in the HD/Library/Receipts section.
I deleted it & emptied the trash.

Is it likely that this is the only thing I need to delete? When I opened Finder and did cmd-F, it was the only file it found that matched the letters I gave (the driver installer started with "VIA")...

Is it likely that this was all I needed to do, or are there other places on the drive I should for files related to the driver?

Thanks again!

01-27-2009, 08:18 PM

Firstly, deleting the .pkg receipt will not solve the problem.

Cmd-F is very thorough in searching your OS and hard drive. Drivers are usually found in Library, either Mac HD > Library > System > Library; or User > Library > ?? (I can't say what that final designation is because I don't know the PCI driver name). If Finder could only locate that one file in association with the driver name, then chances are it's all there is.

The real test however comes in using your computer again, particularly the USB function. If it's still bad, then you need to go back again to search for that driver. There are other ways to look for it through Console > Logs, but before that, see if USB is working properly again.

One further thing, if you haven't done so already, use OnyX (free) to repair disk permissions, run maintenance scripts, and clean caches.