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

Hi I'm new here. Just wanted to give a HUGE thanks to CaseySJ for this amazing guide! I've been lurking on this forum for a while but this was my first build. Couldn't have gone smoother! HIGH FIVE CaseySJ and everyone who got this working!

i9 9900k no overclocking with the Corsair H150i Pro and Sapphire Vega 64: (see attached benchmarks and stats)
Max temps under heavy load = ~70C
125 Watts idle and 320 Watts max pulled from the wall under heavy loads (total system power measured with a UPS power supply and digital readout)

I tried overclocking the 9900k a little with mild success. Peak system power consumption jumped from 300 to about 650 watts and cpu temps soared near 100C a couple times. All that while only yielding a 4-5% increase in benchmark performance. In the end I decided the stock bios settings do a good job of maximizing efficiency of this chip, so I'll stick with that.

Speaking of overclocking... while attempting the overclock the computer froze up on me a couple times. After some forced reboots, I am now suddenly unable to enter the bios screen unless I unplug ALL usb devices except the keyboard and mouse. Strange that it didn't behave that way before. Any ideas why that might have changed all the sudden? A cmos reset and a bios update flash from f5 to f6c had no effect. Weird! Not a big deal though.
 

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Thanks @trs96 for the quick reply. Weirdly, I also bought this router in Singapore last 2016. It's an Asus RT-AC87U. Would it still be applicable that I update my Wifi Country Code though it says SG which is (weirdly) also connecting to a router bought in SG?
I didn't know you had a router from Singapore. Interesting. If so you can leave it as is. Have you tested anything else in your x1 PCIe slot to see if it works or not ?
 
@KaelYeah, glad to hear it!

Your BIOS issue is quite unusual. Some suggestions:
  • Remove power cable for 10 seconds.
  • If you have multiple USB devices connected, plug them in one at a time and try to enter BIOS Setup screen. We know keyboard and mouse are okay, so those can be connected at all times. Try to see if one particular USB device is causing the problem and whether it might be due to a particular USB port or port type.
  • As another example, if one or more USB ports on your PC case are not working or not connected securely, it might cause problems.
 
I didn't know you had a router from Singapore. Interesting. If so you can leave it as is. Have you tested anything else in your x1 PCIe slot to see if it works or not ?

Okay, I think I'll just leave it as is too. Not really using Wifi much either as I have a wired connection. Plus, I'm having a a hard time understanding how to change the country code either haha.

But just a theoretical question, what are the symptoms in the Hack that something is wrong and that the country code needs to be changed?

Lastly, the only PCI card I have is an old GTX 680 which is not an X1 either so I don't have any other way of knowing if the X1 slots are actually faulty. Was that what you were thinking? :cry:
 
Was that what you were thinking?
If the Wifi card works in a x8 or x16 it's possible that the x1 slot itself could not be working properly. A simple way to rule that out if you can put something else there that does work.
 
* Interim Updates on Thunderbolt Local Node *

Since the original post on this topic on February 24, I thought I would provide some updates.

Thunderbolt Local Node allows for at least the following two capabilities:

1. Thunderbolt IP Service
  • Using the Thunderbolt port as an Ethernet connection when two computers are connected over a single Thunderbolt cable.
  • For this to work, AppleThunderboltIPService and AppleThunderboltIPPort need to get attached to the Thunderbolt Local Node as shown below (from my 2012 MacBook Air).
    390994
  • However, there's more to the story. See that en1 device? That's a fully defined and available Ethernet protocol operating over Thunderbolt. It also has a MAC address, which is given to it by AppleThunderboltIPPort.
  • MAC addresses are not random and, as far as I know, they cannot be created freely like UUIDs which ensure universal uniqueness by also encoding date and time into the mix. MAC addresses cannot be concocted like this and are instead "hard coded" into the firmware.
  • I would assume that every Titan Ridge / Alpine Ridge controller ships with two MAC addresses coded into the firmware (because each controller supports up to 2 Thunderbolt ports).
  • This means we cannot spoof the MAC address. On our motherboard, if AppleThunderboltIPPort is unable to query the MAC address from the Thunderbolt controller, then it will fail to load.
  • It seems to me that the Gigabyte BIOS may be blocking access to the MAC address or to a subsystem of the Thunderbolt controller.
  • Over the past week I tried to replicate as much of Apple's Thunderbolt SSDT as possible. There are strong limitations to how much of Apple's SSDT can be copied and modified, but based on what I was able to import, there was no success. I imported a lot of auxiliary Methods and Objects, modified some others, but it quickly dawned on me that this approach was not going to work.
  • So I decided to install Windows 10 with Intel's own Thunderbolt driver provided through the Gigabyte website. Basic Thunderbolt functionality works and my OWC Thunderbolt 3 dock is fully recognized. However, the Windows equivalent of AppleThunderboltIPPort is something called Thunderbolt Networking. It should look like this:
    390995
  • This screenshot is by @augustopaulo on his Asus X99 Deluxe II motherboard and the Asus ThunderboltEX add-in-card.
  • However, on the Designare Z390 running Windows 10 and the Intel Thunderbolt driver, we do not get Thunderbolt Networking.
  • Does this lead credence to the assumption that Gigabyte BIOS engineers may have overlooked this part of the Thunderbolt specification?
  • Asus was able to implement this capability -- and it shows up in Windows -- so why not Gigabyte?
  • Additionally, on Windows we do not see the Thunderbolt NHI device. Instead, we see Thunderbolt DMA Embedded Endpoint. And also we do not see a USB 3.1 controller on the Thunderbolt device tree. But both NHI and USB controller are present on the Asus ThunderboltEX add-in-card as shown here:
    391004
2. Target Disk Mode
  • Target Disk Mode allows a Mac's boot drive to be mounted to another Mac over a single Thunderbolt cable. Target Disk Mode is available over regular Ethernet as well, but is much faster over Thunderbolt.
  • This mode is activated from System Preferences --> Startup Disk as shown below.
    390996
  • When this mode is active, a driver called AppleThunderboltUTDM (TDM = Target Disk Mode) is attached to the Thunderbolt Bus as shown.
    390998
  • Thanks to @3Dman for the screenshot.
  • This might be even trickier to address than Thunderbolt IP Port. Right now I'm more concerned about enabling Thunderbolt Networking, first in Windows and then seeing whether it translates across to MacOS.
Side Comment

While examining the Thunderbolt device hierarchy under Windows using HWInfo64, I noticed that the 14-Port OWC Thunderbolt 3 dock contains an Alpine Ridge controller instead of the newer Titan Ridge. This might actually be a good thing! It might mean that the elusive Apple Thunderbolt Display might work if connected through this dock.

This image from the Designare Z390 also shows the lack of:
  • NHI controller
  • USB 3.1 controller
390999
 
Last edited:
  • However, on the Designare Z390 running Windows 10 and the Intel Thunderbolt driver, we do not get Thunderbolt Networking.
  • Does this lead credence to the assumption that Gigabyte BIOS engineers may have overlooked this part of the Thunderbolt specification?
I had the same problem on Windows, to get Thunderbolt Networking on Windows, you have to attach another device with networking support. When I attached my MacBook Pro, Thunderbolt Networking became available and I managed to SSH from both my MacBook and PC using the self assigned IPs. I could boot Windows and get screenshots later.
Thunderbolt Networking worked on Linux as well. I didn't check the mac addresses though, I will try both Windows and Linux to make sure that the MAC addresses are not generated.

I also managed to dump the NVM of the Thunderbolt controller using the Linux driver, sadly I couldn't read the NVM of any of the MacBook Pro's Titan Ridge controllers, looks like the driver doesn't support reading the NVM of Mac Thunderbolt controllers, or maybe there's some kind of security on them...
 
I had the same problem on Windows, to get Thunderbolt Networking on Windows, you have to attach another device with networking support. When I attached my MacBook Pro, Thunderbolt Networking became available and I managed to SSH from both my MacBook and PC using the self assigned IPs. I could boot Windows and get screenshots later.
Thunderbolt Networking worked on Linux as well. I didn't check the mac addresses though, I will try both Windows and Linux to make sure that the MAC addresses are not generated.

I also managed to dump the NVM of the Thunderbolt controller using the Linux driver, sadly I couldn't read the NVM of any of the MacBook Pro's Titan Ridge controllers, looks like the driver doesn't support reading the NVM of Mac Thunderbolt controllers, or maybe there's some kind of security on them...
  • Do you see a USB 3.1 controller as a child node of Thunderbolt when using HWInfo64 on Windows? Or in Linux?
  • Regarding the Thunderbolt Network, are the MAC addresses identical between Windows and Linux?
 
Interesting that Apple is still using USB 2.0 for the lightning connector even on iPhone Xs. I believe the iPadPros from last 2017 and 2018 are both using USB 3.0 for faster I/O over lightning. I would expect the new iPhones to switch to USB 3.0 as well, especially if Apple decides to retire the lightning connector in favor of USB-C as they did on the 2018 iPadPro.
To be clear, the USB-c to lighting cable works on my Macbook Pro. Transfer speeds are in line with USB3.0 on that and with my Hack using a USB 3 port and the standard lighting cable. It is interesting though. On the Designare the phone comes up with "USB device not supported" when trying the TB3 ports. My phone does connect to the USB-C breakout on the MB.
 
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