[SUCCESS] Gigabyte Designare Z390 (Thunderbolt 3) + i7-9700K + AMD RX 580

[DJ4MC]

I believe the Samsung 970 is a PCIe M.2 drive and not a SATA M.2 so you may omit the SAT0-to-SATA patch; however, it doesn’t hurt to have it and in fact Post Install procedure calls for it!

Next question: Should I use the M2M or the M2P slot? I have studied the MB manual and the difference between the two relates to using/loss of a few of the SATA ports. Bonus question: Other than designating the port does the "M" or "P" mean anything?

Jules

 

[CaseySJ]

Next question: Should I use the M2M or the M2P slot? I have studied the MB manual and the difference between the two relates to using/loss of a few of the SATA ports. Bonus question: Other than designating the port does the "M" or "P" mean anything?

Jules

Good questions! Although I do not have an official answer, this is my understanding:

• M2M
  • Ties up two SATA ports, which suggests full PCIe x4 capability.
  • In BIOS you can assign these PCIe lanes to either the CPU or PCH. By default, the lanes are assigned to PCH. But if you assign them to CPU you will get even faster I/O.
  • So I interpret "M2M" to be: M.2 "multi-mode". This is just my own mnemonic.
  • Because I'm using an ADATA M.2 PCIe x4 SSD, it is plugged into this M2M slot.
• M2P
  • Ties up one SATA port, which suggests perhaps PCIe x2 capability.
  • The PCIe lanes for this slot are assigned to PCH only. There is no option in BIOS to change this.
  • So I interpret "M2P" to be: M.2 "PCH-controlled".

Because I plan to populate the M2P slot sometime in the future, I've connected my 1TB SATA SSD to SATA Port 2. It's probably a good idea to use SATA Ports 2 and 3 first because they are never affected by M.2 cards.

 

[DJ4MC]

Good questions! Although I do not have an official answer, this is my understanding:

• M2M
  • Ties up two SATA ports, which suggests full PCIe x4 capability.
  • In BIOS you can assign these PCIe lanes to either the CPU or PCH. By default, the lanes are assigned to PCH. But if you assign them to CPU you will get even faster I/O.
  • So I interpret "M2M" to be: M.2 "multi-mode". This is just my own mnemonic.
  • Because I'm using an ADATA M.2 PCIe x4 SSD, it is plugged into this M2M slot.
• M2P
  • Ties up one SATA port, which suggests perhaps PCIe x2 capability.
  • The PCIe lanes for this slot are assigned to PCH only. There is no option in BIOS to change this.
  • So I interpret "M2P" to be: M.2 "PCH-controlled".

Because I plan to populate the M2P slot sometime in the future, I've connected my 1TB SATA SSD to SATA Port 2. It's probably a good idea to use SATA Ports 2 and 3 first because they are never affected by M.2 cards.

I will use the M2M slot then. And do a little more research!

Thanks!

 

[AlexD]

Hope everyone is enjoying the holidays! Just wanted to give you guys a quick update on my progress with Apple Thunderbolt Display connection issues to Gigabyte Z390 Designare and it’s TB3 on PCH JHL7540. It turns out, that there’s something really wrong with current Gigabyte’s BIOS itself or the way they engineered Intel’s Thunderbolt chip and routes implementation in this particular board. Also maybe its a particular Thunderbolt NVM Firmware issue (mine shows its as NVM 33).

I tried to connect the display in macOS 10.14.2, latest Windows 10 October 2018 Update and latest Ubuntu 18.10. No luck at all. Doesn’t turn on. Never. In every OS the controller itself getting recognized properly in System Properties as Titan Ridge JHL7540.

I know and seen some proofs of this particular display working flawlessly with Alpine Ridge cards and on older chipsets like Z170. I found a video on Youtube where the guy is using his Gigabyte Z170 Designare and connect Apple Thunderbolt Display right to the Thunderbolt port of the motherboard. Display is recognized instantly and even shows the BIOS (!) and Clover (!) screens perfectly. No issues at all. How is that possible?

It clearly proves that there’s absolutely no problem with running TB displays (true Thunderbolt displays) right from the start, if your BIOS is proper and properly enumerates PCI devices and initialises Thunderbolt on them in a correct way. Then, you should be able to use your Thunderbolt display right from the moment you pressing the power button on your PC.

So now I have serious questions to Gigabyte’s (mostly) and Intel’s engineers: what you did with Titan Ridge here on Z390s, so I can’t use my Apple Thunderbolt Display right from the BIOS stage?

Maybe they should implement a better, more thorough PCI enumeration (just how they did it before) or give us this settings in BIOS so we can switch it on by ourselves. Or maybe provide us a BIOS update with new Thunderbolt NVM firmware, that fixes all the issues mentioned above. I’m not sure who’s of them is more responsible for all TB issues, but there’s definitely something that needs to be done on the BIOS/NVM side of things.

 

[buddhaburger]

@CaseySJ I just bought one of these motherboards and followed this setup guide (Method 1),
I followed @pastrychef's guide on RX VEGA Fans & Voltage and I am so happy! Great well written guides and easy to follow!

I discovered that i could only install Mojave straight to my 970 Pro if it was located in the M2M slot (Closest to graphics card). Initially the drive was installed in the M2P slot and Mojave would would get to the last stage (15min remaining) and say "mojave can't be installed on this computer etc" Changing to the M2M slot solved this for me, installed smoothly.

I can confirm that TB3 hot-swap is working all day long with a daisy chain of 2x UA Apollo 16mk2's + UAD Satellite QUAD! Even with all of the PCI/PCH loaded up with 3 NVME's, Vega 64 and a wifi card this build is rock solid and the performance is outstanding.

For the vega, i also modified an X99 VEGA-64 SSDT from @kgp's repository and it shows up in system preferences and all of ports (3x DP + 1 HDMI) work great as expected with hot plugging etc.

So this is a massive appreciation post and even bigger thank you to you guys for your amazing work!

 

[CaseySJ]

@CaseySJ I just bought one of these motherboards and followed this setup guide (Method 1),
I followed @pastrychef's guide on RX VEGA Fans & Voltage and I am so happy! Great well written guides and easy to follow!

I discovered that i could only install Mojave straight to my 970 Pro if it was located in the M2M slot (Closest to graphics card). Initially the drive was installed in the M2P slot and Mojave would would get to the last stage (15min remaining) and say "mojave can't be installed on this computer etc" Changing to the M2M slot solved this for me, installed smoothly.

I can confirm that TB3 hot-swap is working all day long with a daisy chain of 2x UA Apollo 16mk2's + UAD Satellite QUAD! Even with all of the PCI/PCH loaded up with 3 NVME's, Vega 64 and a wifi card this build is rock solid and the performance is outstanding.

For the vega, i also modified an X99 VEGA-64 SSDT from @kgp's repository and it shows up in system preferences and all of ports (3x DP + 1 HDMI) work great as expected with hot plugging etc.

So this is a massive appreciation post and even bigger thank you to you guys for your amazing work!

That makes my day! I'll modify Post #1 to include your experience with the UADs.

But I must say that the real trailblazers are the moderators and superusers of this site. They did all the real work.

 

[CaseySJ]

Maybe they should implement a better, more thorough PCI enumeration (just how they did it before) or give us this settings in BIOS so we can switch it on by ourselves. Or maybe provide us a BIOS update with new Thunderbolt NVM firmware, that fixes all the issues mentioned above. I’m not sure who’s of them is more responsible for all TB issues, but there’s definitely something that needs to be done on the BIOS/NVM side of things.

Thanks for the detailed update! I wonder if some of the Thunderbolt 3 BIOS settings might have a positive impact on this. For example, I disabled TB3 Boot Support, TB3 Security, etc. (Disabling TB3 security was necessary for the system to recognize my OWC Dock.) TB3 "Boot Once" enumerates all TB3 devices on boot. So if you plug in all TB3 devices at boot time with this BIOS settings, maybe it will do a better job of enumerating them?

Boot Once does, however, cause problems on subsequent boots, so it would be good to disable it before the subsequent reboot.

However, I am a novice in this area.

 

[ripe_md]

@CaseySJ
I discovered that i could only install Mojave straight to my 970 Pro if it was located in the M2M slot (Closest to graphics card). Initially the drive was installed in the M2P slot and Mojave would would get to the last stage (15min remaining) and say "mojave can't be installed on this computer etc" Changing to the M2M slot solved this for me, installed smoothly.

@CaseySJ
Maybe this also explains the major issues I had installing 10.14.2, as I'm using the M2P slot, because I'm in need for 5 SATA interfaces (using M2M results in only 4 avilable SATA interfaces).

 

[DJ4MC]

I discovered that i could only install Mojave straight to my 970 Pro if it was located in the M2M slot (Closest to graphics card). Initially the drive was installed in the M2P slot and Mojave would would get to the last stage (15min remaining) and say "mojave can't be installed on this computer etc" Changing to the M2M slot solved this for me, installed smoothly.

Well, that solves which slot I am using. BTW are you running FCPX? I am building with an RX580 but plan on updating the graphics card at a later date. So far my order is spread out over tomorrow and friday for arrival. The CPU heatsink showed up today. Gotta Love Amazon... :-/

 

[CaseySJ]

@CaseySJ
Maybe this also explains the major issues I had installing 10.14.2, as I'm using the M2P slot, because I'm in need for 5 SATA interfaces (using M2M results in only 4 avilable SATA interfaces).

I've updated the build guide as follows:

"Your ACPI section should include the SAT0-to-SATA patch. If you're installing Mojave onto a SATA SSD or an M.2 SATA SSD you will need this setting. Even if you're installing to an M.2 PCIe SSD you should add this patch because it will be required by any future SATA connections. Because I'm using an M.2 PCIe x4 SSD, it's plugged into the M2M slot (nearest the CPU)."