"Mike, You asked me to email again once Acard uploaded the new firmware and drivers to their support page. ( http://www.acard.com/eng/support/mac.html) The v2.43 firmware and 1.5.2 drivers (for OS X 10.2.x) are now available for the AEC6880M (ATA/133 RAID). I booted into OS 9.2.2 and flashed with the "new" firmware 2.43, but I don't think there's a difference between it and version 2.42.
From the Read Me:
MacDriver_1.5.2
1. Support Deep Sleep (was in prev. beta driver)
2. Applicable to ACARD IDE adapters
( AEC6885M, AEC6885MS, AEC6880M, AEC6280M, AEC6860M, AEC6260M ) and SCSI adapters (AEC67160M, AEC6712WM, AEC6712UM, AEC6712TSM )
3. Three drivers were updated:
ACARD62xxM.kext->v1.5.1; ACARD68xxM->v1.5.2; ACARD671XSCSI.kext->v1.4.2
Two drivers were added: ACARD6885M.kext V1.0.0d1; ACARD67162M.kext V1.0.0d1

They've also got the firmware for the new 4-channel RAID card (AEC6885MS) there as well.
Mike G."

Their 4 channel ATA/133 IDE RAID card was noted here a few months ago but no pricing on the Mac model was listed and not sure if it's shipping yet for the Mac.
In addition to the OS X driver and Firmware update mentioned earlier today, Mike G. wrote that Acard also has posted an OS X version of their RAID Utility but noted he saw some problems with it until he updated to the new 2.4.3 firmware/1.5.2 driver (noted in previous news item below):

" Mike, Just wanted to add there's an OS X version of the RAID Utility software. The app quit and didn't recognize the card (6880M, ATA/133 RAID) until I updated the firmware (v2.4.3) and drivers (v1.5.2). The previous version of the RAID utility was OS 9-only.
Mike G. "

All these updates are linked at http://www.acard.com/eng/support/mac.html.

Remember that Sonnet and SIIG (and Miglia I think) also sell rebranded Acard IDE controller cards. (Use Apple System profiler to check the card ID first - the Sonnet ATA-100 and ATA-133 Non-RAID cards are Promise chip based, their ATA/66 and ATA-133 RAID cards are Acard based.)

Note: The Mac SIIG and Sonnet Tempo ATA/66 RAID and ATA/133 RAID cards are Acard based, but not the Tempo ATA/100 and Tempo ATA/133 non-RAID cards (they are Promise chip based.) If in doubt, run Apple System Profiler to check the card controller chip/ID.

Since it's a test version, cautious individuals may want to wait for a later version of the driver. However if any other readers do try this beta/test version, let me know your card model/mac system/OS X version details and any other PCI cards you have installed (not all PCI cards support deep sleep) and if it worked.
Please let me know in the report if you're running a RAID setup. (Deep Sleep is not supported with G4/PCI Yikes, B&W G3 and older Macs.)

Reader Reports: (most recent first)

NOTE: Unless otherwise noted - reports below were using the original beta 1.5 driver and were not using OS X 10.2.2 unless mentioned in their comments. I'm not sure if that update will overwrite the acard driver or not. If you updated to OS X 10.2.2 (released later in the day on Nov. 11th) please mention this in your report. Thanks.

(Note - many of the mails added Nov 27th were from a week or more ago - just getting caught up here on past mail.)

(Added 11/27/2002)
" Deep sleep is now working on my machine using a SIIG Ultra ATA 100/133 Pro.

I have:
G4 450 AGP,
OS X 10.2.2,
OEM DVD-104 (have not yet upgraded firmware),
Adaptec 2930 SCSI Card
Retail Radeon AGP 32MB
512MB RAM,
4 hard drives (3 on the card, 1 on the mother board).
None of my drives are set up as RAID.

Siig replied as follows to my tech support e-mail : "Hello, Please return the card thru your direct vendor. We could not duplicate this problem in our lab.
Therefore, we do not have a fix for this problem at this time."

Subsequently, I downloaded the ACARD beta extensions and now deep sleep works correctly. Makes me wonder if I should have purchased from Sonnet instead. (Sonnet and SIIG and some others sell rebranded Acard RAID cards. Acard however does the firmware and driver development as far as I know. Some sonnet cards are not Acard based - the Sonnet Tempo 100 and non-RAID ATA/133 card are Promise chip based - see past IDE articles here for firmware updates for them.-Mike)

Great site - thanks for posting the info.
Andre"

(Added 11/27/2002 - mail dated Nov 21st)
" Hi, Just wanted to add my two cents to this issue.
I have a PowerMac G4 AGP 500MHZ
1GB RAM
1 20 GB western digital HD and 2 maxtor (30 and 80 GB) on a Siig ATA/133 non Raid card with the 6280 ACARD chipset.
no other PCI cards.

I installed the beta driver and restarted. nothing. The fan still wouldn't go into deep sleep.

I then manually deleted the ACARD driver for the 62XX cards in the system/library/extensions and reinstalled the 1.5 beta driver. Bingo. Works like a charm, i can finally get some peace and quite.
Calvin Ells "

I wonder if this would have helped some past reports below...

(Added 11/27/2002 - mail dated Nov 13th)
" Hello Mike,
Tried the deep sleep driver today but it did not work for me(case cooling fan and graphic card fan still kept spinning,.monitor and drives spun down though).

Hardware:
867 QS 2001, OS 10.2.2, 1.5GB, ATI Radeon 8500, SIIG 133 Raid with WD120 on each channel, Maxtor 60 and WD120 on onboard IDE.
Regards,
Marty S. "

(Added 11/27/2002 - mail dated Nov 12th)
" Mike:
In case anyone wondered about how the 10.2.2 upgrade may affect the beta "deep sleep" driver, I can say that with my set-up, it still works without problems
Pieter "

(Added 11/27/2002 - mail dated Nov 12th)
" Deep sleep works very well! Finally.
Quicksilever 2000 Dual 1-gig, 1.5 G memory, standard 80 Gig HD, 22" Cinema Display.
Sonnett tempo RAID 133 upgraded to 2.4.2 firmware, with two Western Digital 100G drives attached, both as masters, as one RAID 0 volume.
Other cards include:
Radeon 7000 with a 17" studio display connected thru Ex*tend*it DVI to ADC convertor.
Orange Micro USB2 / Firewire card.
Sam W. "

(Added 11/27/2002 - mail dated Nov 12th)
" Just installed the update, and nothing has changed. Fans still stay on ACARD,6880M
Quick Silver dual 1Ghz
1GB ram
GeForce4 Ti
10.2.2
2 WD 100GB drives in stripe RAID mode
Adam M "

(Added 11/27/2002 - mail dated Nov 12th)
" On my system:
Quicksilver Dual-800MHz,
1.1GB RAM,
NVidia Geforce 2,
ATI Rage 7000,
120GB Western Digital Drive,
60GB Maxtor,
Acard ATA-133 Raid Controller,
OS X 10.2.2

The new beta does not add any functionality nor fix the deep sleep issue. System still shuts down the monitors and spins down the drives. All the fans remain on.
Robert W. "

(Added 11/27/2002 - mail dated Nov. 11th)
" No luck. Dual 1 gig QS, 10.2.2, SIIG version of the ACARD6280M (non-raid), in slot 4. Have connected to it a WD SE 120 and a WD 60, both as single/master (using both connectors). Neither drive is the boot drive (boot 10 off of the internal bus). I saw absolutely no effect after installing the drivers - still unable to get to deep sleep.
--Anthony "

(Added 11/27/2002 - mail dated Nov. 11th)
" Mike,
Just wanted to update you on the Acard 1.5 beta. I installed OS X.2.2 tonight on my QS Dual 1 GHz, 1GB Ram, 2 WD Caviar 80 GB, 2 Seagate Barracuda 80 GB, all 7200 rpm. I have the SIIG ATA 133 RAID in Stripe mode (RAID 0) and no mirroring. Deep Sleep now works, whereas under X.2.1 it did not.
I'm a happy camper.
John S. "

(Added 11/27/2002 - mail dated Nov. 11th)
" My System:
Mac OS X (10.2.1)
DP G4 500
AGP Radeon 32MB (ADC)
USB 2.0 Card (EMC)
FireWire/USB 2.0 Card (Orange Micro)
Pioneer DVR-A03 Drive
1.5 GB PC-133 RAM
40 GB IBM Hard Drive X 1
60 GB IBM Hard Drive X 3
Acard AHARD 133 RAID Card connected to two of the 60 GB drives and set to Stripe Mode.

Ran the Beta deep sleep fix and most things seem to be working well. My computer now actually goes to sleep- the lights even pulsate again and thank God, no more power supply fan on all night!!!! Only negatives to report: first, sometimes, when the computer has been in deep sleep for many hours- say more than 8- it will prevent the system from shutting down or restarting the next time I try to do it.
Basically this means I have to push the restart button on the front of the computer. But again, only happens if it has been asleep for a long time, and now that it goes into deep sleep, this only becomes an issue when I need to change startup disks and restart.
The only other problem I've found is that my Microsoft cordless optical mouse does not always work when waking from deep sleep. Again, the longer the computer has been sleeping, the more likely the problem is. However, it is not too difficult to fix. If I unplug the mouse's receiver station from the USB port, then plug it back in, and then hit the connect buttons on both the station and the mouse, it all goes back to normal.

Maybe either Microsoft or Acard will offer a fix for this issue in the future. But, for now, I can't really complain. None of my data was lost, I have seen no speed decreases from my striped drives, and my computer can now go to sleep and I can have silence without having to turn it off. Not a bad trade for some mouse and restart troubles.
George C.
Seoul, South Korea "

(Added 11/27/2002 - mail dated Nov. 11th)
" Hi Mike:
Looks like the beta driver from the Acard also works on my setup!

PowerMac 800 Dual
MacOSX 10.2.1
SiiG PCI 133 IDE non-raid
GeForce 2MX
1.5gb
IBM 120gb, IBM 60gb, Maxtor 60gb
Firewire Maxtor 40GB x2
Firewire Maxtor 80GB
Firewire Iomega 40x12x48x
Firewire Yamaha 24x12x40x
Firewire Fuji 2.5"
Apple 17" LCD
USB Sound Stick & iSub
Wilson L. "

(Added 11/27/2002 - mail dated Nov. 11th)
" I'm using the beta driver on my dual 1.25 GHhz mac with two IBM drives RAIDed together on a Sonnet Tempo ATA 133 RAID card. Sleeps & wakes up fine.

One odd thing--after a while the machine spontaneously wakes itself up. Of course, it will sleep again later, but it's rather strange.
Lloyd C. "

(Added 11/27/2002 - mail dated Nov. 11th)
" QS 867 10.2.1
640 MB ram
GeForce 3
Voodoo3
Adaptec 2930 SCSi -1x4 GB old seagate 1xZip 100MB
Acard 6280M (raidless) -2x120 GB WD SE's
Superdrive w/ update applied

no problems with the acard update, works perfect, its great to have deep sleep!
SR "

(added 11/11/2002)
" Hello Mike
I have tried the 1.5 Beta drivers with my Acard 6260 (Sonnet Tempo 66) in a G4 AGP Graphics (Sawtooth) machine. The machine is equipped with a Adaptec 2930 SCSI card and a ATI Radeon 8500 graphics card, and is running OS X 10.2.1

The machine falls asleep (pulsating LED), but won't wake up. Disks spins up (only the ones on the internal IDE card as far as I can tell), but the optical mouse LEDs stays, the monitor also stays off.
All the best.
Magnus N. "

A reader replied to the above comment:

"The Blue and early Graphite 17" Apple CRTs have a history of going flaky in exactly the way magnus is describing. It could be that the monitor is about to die and not the video card. This apple technote:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=88195
describes the problem vaguely. The popping and cracking is associated with a 'degauss' like dimming and vibration of the image. I think apple was repairing or replacing these even if they were past warranty because is was such a widespread problem in the original manufacture.
Hope this helps
Justin"

(added 11/11/2002)
" Installed Acard deep sleep driver and Pioneer DVR-104 1.33 firmware. Both went fine and deep sleep now works.
Power Mac G4 AGP 500 MHZ
1.5 GB Ram
2-40 GB Hard drives striped as 1-80 GB drive connected to SIIG(Acard 6880M) ATA133 hardware raid card
1-100 GB drive connected to Built in ATA controller
Pioneer DVR-104
Zip 100 ATAPI
Adaptec 2930 SCSI Card
Retail Radeon AGP 32MB
HP 932C printer
Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer
Adesso ergonomic keyboard
DVI Apple 15 inch Flat Panel Graphite Display
Umax Astra 6400 Scanner
Mac OS 10.2.1 with all updates as of 11/11/02
Hope this is helpful.
Mike F. "

(added 11/11/2002)
" PowerMac G4 Quicksilver 2002, dual 800, OS 10.2.1, installed just fine, works great
Eric M.
(he later wrote)
Forgot to mention that I have Acard 6280M non-RAID with Western Digital WD400BB and Seagate ST380021A each set to "master" (two cables on card). "

(added 11/11/2002)
" Hi Mike,
I installed the beta driver and it works for me. I got a ACARD 6260 (in my G4 466 DA, with AGP MacRadeon and a Xclaim 128 VR) says the system profiler. I'm happy it did because I also have a readon mac edition with ofcourse also has a fan and now I don't have shut down to get some peace and silence.
AiR "

(added 11/11/2002)
" I have a stock 450 G4 AGP with 1 GB of RAM and using 10.2.1, with OS 9.2.2 on the same partition. Using it as a RAID setup (not mirror).

I installed the new driver and it has worked perfectly so far. I finally have deep sleep back!
Leslie G. "

I wrote Leslie to ask what specific card he was using (Please include that info in reports - thanks.)

The 2nd report of a RAID stripe set allowing deep sleep (some noted it didn't though - not sure why... assuming there's no other PCI cards in the system that don't support deep sleep.)

(added 11/9/2002)
" Mike:
I have a Sawtooth 450MHz DP, 1.3 GB of Ram, with a Acard AEC6880M ATA 133 hardware raid hooked to two IBM 80 GB (2MB cache) hard drives in striped mode.

Upgraded the firmware to 2.4.2, then installed the beta "deep sleep" driver. Deep sleep now works perfectly. I'm pleased!
Pieter"

(added 11/9/2002)
" Deep Sleep is "No-Go" in RAID 0 mode with 2.42 firmware (corrected typo - latest 6880M firmware version is 2.42 -Mike) and 1.5 Beta Driver

I have QS Dual 1 GHz Jan 2002
2 WD Caviar 80 GB and
2 Seagate Barracuda 80 GB
OS X.2.1

I'm using the SIIG RAID/133 card.
John S "

See the next report below (same ATA/133 RAID, same QS system) that noted deep sleep worked w/RAID 0 stripe set.

(added 11/9/2002)
" Hi Mike,
Just noticed your article on the beta driver for the Acard/OS X deep sleep and thought I would give it a try. Works perfectly so far. I have emailed Acard tech support several times about this issue and they told me it is nothing they could fix that it was an Apple OS X problem. Guess they figured out a way to do it. I am very happy as I never turn off my machine.

Set up: Dual 1GB (QuickSilver), 1.5 GB ram, stock ATI 7500 video card in the AGP slot and the only PCI card installed is the Acard AEC6880M ATA 133 hardware raid card. The only two hard drives in the machine are the IBM 180 GB model both set to master and attached one to each of the channels on the Acard and then raided together (stripe raid). I have a built-in Superdrive and Zip drive and running OS 10.2.1. The Acard has firmware 2.42.

By the way, these are the fastest drives I have seen yet on this card as I tried several including the Western Digital 180 GB. I always split up my drives (one drive now that they are raided) into 4 partitions. Mac OS X - 25 GB, Music - 25 GB, Photos - 50 GB, Video - 250 GB. Using ATTO Express Pro-Tools and running from OS 9 (only way to properly test the speed of the drives) choosing a Maximum transfer size of 8 MB, my Peak AND Sust'd Read is 125 MB/s, Peak AND Sust'd Write is 112 MB/s.
Mark B. "

The IBM 18GB has a 8MB cache I think, if so the ATTO benchmark's 8MB I/O size limit means that's not a good benchmark. (Max I/O test size is no larger than the Drive cache size.)

(added 11/9/2002)
" I'm running the AEC6280M on an G4 AGP 400, six harddrives, the system (10.2.1) is on the regular 66 bus.
It works (yea!), only thing is that it takes a while to sleep and wake up, probably the hard drives spinning up and down.
Richard S. "

I wrote Richard to ask if he was running a RAID setup.

(added 11/9/2002)
" The driver works perfectly, before the update, I was unable to go to deep sleep, ie the fans would stay on. I can wake from sleep with no problems whatsoever. My card is a Sonnet Tempo Ultra ATA66, but Apple System Profiler shows it as an Acard 6260. My system is a G4 500 Sawtooth running OSX 10.2.1 (didnt test in 9) with a Radeon 8500, the Tempo card, and a ProTools Digi 001 card. The system drive is on the onboard IDE channel.
David D. "

I wrote David to ask if he was running a RAID setup and he said no.

(added 11/8/2002)
" I have a G4 733 1.25 gb ram, and a SiiG ATA 133 card installed running a WD 100gb drive. SiiG cards have the same problems and, unless I'm mistaken, the same chipset as the Acard cards. (yes, the card is an acard model-Mike) I figured I would try the beta driver on my computer.
It works perfectly. After installing, the computer entered its first deep sleep in a year and a half. I haven't noticed any problems with it so far, but I will keep you advised if there are any.
Casey "

(added 11/8/2002)
" Hi Mike,
I've just installed this onto my Mac and it does not work! Still in light sleep, i.e. hard drives spin down but light is solid white instead of pulsating and the power supply fan is still on.

I unplugged all USB and Firewire devices and still no go.
I have the following setup:
733Mhz Digital Audio G4 with Superdrive and internal Zip drive
OS 10.2.1
Acard 133 hardware raid with 2.42 firmware installed
4 internal drives:
Master on internal bus: Western Digital 1000BB (100GB 7200 RPM)
Slave on internal bus: Maxtor Diamond Max 80 (80 GB 5400 RPM) On Acard set to Raid 0 (stripped) 2 x IBM GXP 120 (80GB 7200 RPM)

Deep sleep works fine when booted into OS 9.2.2
Cheers,
David
(he later wrote)
Hi Mike,
Just a follow up on my previous report - I do not have any other PCI card in my system other then the ATA card so I am curious as to why my G4 will not sleep as I have the same setup as your second successful report with 2 raided IBM drives (120 GXP I assume).

The only difference is that I have a digital Audio mac, the 2 successful reports have either Quicksilver and Sawtooth although I believe there is not much difference between the Quicksilver and digital audio motherboards if any at all.
Any suggestions appreciated!
Cheers,
David "

Don't know why it worked for others and not you, sorry. (A wild guess would be to run Apple's repair disk permissions from disk utility in case the driver permissions are an issue - may not help though.)

(added 11/8/2002)
" Strange - when I spoke to Acard a couple of weeks ago, they said deep sleep was "impossible" on the 6880 - apparently because in mirrored mode, the firmware needs the drives to be spinning all the time in order to check data on the two drives is the same.
I would want to be really, really sure before installing this puppy...
FYI, I have a G4 Gigabit ethernet (dual 500) with a 6880M and two mirrored WD Caviar 120 GB.. Works like a dream, except of course, no deep sleep.
Raphael "

If any 6880M card owners (use Apple system profiler if in doubt of the ID) try the driver with a mirrored array, let me know. (Note if you're using the hardware switch setting for Mirror mode (past acard firmware update added this) or using OS X's disk utility raid setup.)

(added 11/8/2002)
" Dual Gig G4 (last year QS) 1.5 GB RAM. OS X.2.1 First time I have been able to deep sleep in a year! It works!
Don B.
Macintosh Consultant "

I asked Don to note what specific card he had and he replied the 6880M (ATA/133 RAID model).

(added 11/8/2002)
" I've got a quicksilver Dual 800, OS X 10.2.1 with the SIIG Dual Channel ATA/133 controller (it has the ACARD chipset) and Deep sleep works like a dream, my powermate now realizes it's full potential! rock on.
Geoffrey M. "

Thanks to all that responded.
If any other readers do try this driver, let me know your card model/mac system details and if it worked. If you're running a RAID setup, also make a note of that. (Deep Sleep is not supported with G4/PCI Yikes, B&W G3 and older Macs.)

Acard IDE Card and SCSI Adapter Driver for 'Deep Sleep' Support in OS X (repeat of main site news page posting)
From http://www.acard.com/eng/support/mac.html

Macintosh Driver For "Deep Sleep"Support

Note
1. Beta Version Applicable to ACARD IDE adapters ( AEC6880M, AEC6280M, AEC6860M, AEC6260M ) and SCSI adapters ( AEC67160M, AEC6712WM, AEC6712UM, AEC6712TSM ).

2. This is a Pre-release version for test only.

* If any problem occurs after driver installed, please reverse to the driver for OS X ver10.2, OS X 10.2 Support and kindly feedback to support@acard.com.

Note: Deep Sleep is not supported with G4/PCI Yikes, B&W G3 and older Macs. All installed PCI cards must support deep sleep. (For those that have other PCI cards installed.)

Related Articles:
For other IDE/ATA related articles, reviews and guides, see the IDE Topics page.