TUAW reader Rowan Pope pointed us to this insane MacBook Air hacking post. How many USB ports does the Air support? Apple says just one; this post says up to 7. Apparently, the Air has a few extra live USB port connections built into that thar skinny little computer. How do we know this? Because the guy downloaded developer documentation for the ICH-8 chip, which offers 5 low-speed and 2 high-speed USB controllers.
He popped open his Air and measured the voltage at each pin. He then used a hacked memory key with a modded USB extension cable (with an extra resistor just to be safe). After connecting the memory key to one of the pins, his MacBook Air system log reported a USB error. A few more tests and adjustments later, he actually got his laptop to recognize the drive. In total, he found three working USB connections plus an unused SATA controller.
TUAW is awed. Be sure to check out the other mod on this much-opened Air: a carbon-fiber bottom case. Sleek!
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
3-21-2008 @ 11:47AM
Luigi193 said...
I think we broke his server....
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3-21-2008 @ 11:57AM
Eric said...
Or you could plug a USB hub into the Air's USB port and turn your brain off about it.
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3-21-2008 @ 2:31PM
potato said...
True, but having multiple USB ports *is* actually useful sometimes. USB can be extended by hubs to theoretically an infinite number of ports, but in the end the bandwidth available to all devices has a hard limit per-controller.
i.e. If you turn 1 USB port from your laptop into 50, they have to share the 480Mbps between all of them.
Whereas if you had second USB port you've essentially doubled the "total available bandwidth" you have. This is useful for people who attach lots of external drives to their machines, or people who do USB TV tuners, as they're very bandwidth-demanding.
3-21-2008 @ 3:23PM
ars_workerbee said...
@potato: are you really jonesing for 5 low-speed ports that bad? whoooo 4Mb/s!
3-23-2008 @ 12:02AM
Tom said...
@ars_workerbee:
Or an extra high-speed port, doubling his effective 480mbps bandwidth to 960mbps.
3-21-2008 @ 12:51PM
Poltras said...
"Tuaw is awed"
I think it's not the first time you put this phrase here, but everytime I get a broken jaw trying to pronounce it.
I don't know why they didn't include more ports in the MBA, but I'm sure they have a good explanation, not unlike "the bay doesn't open if you make it larger" or "it's not nice enough anymore". I'll stick with my MBP anyway :)
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3-21-2008 @ 12:51PM
ars_workerbee said...
I was checking something in System Profiler on my MacBook Air about a week and a half ago and noticed a bunch of extra USB busses. Whoop-dee-doo.
Just another post to pad the post count for the Queen of Non-News
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3-21-2008 @ 12:56PM
Luigi193 said...
I thought it was interesting...
Shadup!
3-21-2008 @ 1:15PM
ars_workerbee said...
@Luigi193
i suppose you were likewise amazed to find out that the PPC mac minis had an unused firewire pinout on the board, too, right?
3-21-2008 @ 2:31PM
potato said...
Actually Luigi, yeah. I'm a gadget freak in both senses - I love playing with them, and I love hacking them. This is definitely an interesting revelation for me.
3-21-2008 @ 3:55PM
Ben said...
I thought it was interesting too, why don't you go write your own blog instead of heckling Erica.
3-21-2008 @ 1:11PM
TEG said...
Now we need someone to do a mod where they add the extra ports either to the side of the computer or on the top (next to the keyboard).
TEG
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3-21-2008 @ 1:16PM
ars_workerbee said...
you haven't seen any of the macbook air disassembly pics, have you? there's no room.
3-21-2008 @ 5:33PM
tuaw said...
My grand scheme is coming together... the next version of the carbon fiber back will have space for an SD card reader that I'll wire internally.
3-21-2008 @ 7:55PM
pscs said...
you're from macrumors :)
3-21-2008 @ 4:23PM
tnkgrl said...
This is great!
I've located (and hijacked) unused internal USB ports in other laptops before (like my Eee - see links below), but doing this on a MacBook Air is pretty awesome - not sure I'd do it to mine...
http://tnkgrl.wordpress.com/2007/11/28/modding-the-asus-701-eee-bluetooth/
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3-21-2008 @ 6:52PM
futurepastnow said...
Interesting. The SATA controller suggests future hard drive plans.
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3-21-2008 @ 9:13PM
tuaw said...
I didn't actually prove there are SATA signals on that connector, but it would make sense because of its location next to the I/O chip. The connector was too hard to probe - I was afraid I might short something out.
- John Maushammer
(p.s. trying to change my username here; sorry about the confusion!)
3-22-2008 @ 12:12AM
Dave S said...
Maybe if the title wasn't so dang promising! Modding your MBAir to do this may be fun - but it doesn't make sense for anyone - ANYONE - out there, if you need that much throughput you bought the wrong machine.
So can we hack the titles? See lifehacker, they do it right.
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3-22-2008 @ 12:45PM
mungler said...
does anyone know if the MacBook Pro has any spare USB headers? I fancy mounting an internal flash drive as a cheapo SSD boot device... ;)
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