ASROCK Thunderbolt 2 AIC working on Gigabyte Z170MX (Thunderbolt Display)

[siacali]

After building out a machine based on a mATX motherboard from Gigabyte, I really wanted to make it work with my existing Apple Thunderbolt Display. As Gigabyte's thunderbolt cards don't seem to be available, I started wondering if anyone else's cards would work. The ASROCK Thunderbolt 2 AIC (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00YWZKO28/?tag=tonymacx86com-20) is readily available and apparently uses the same header and chipset as the Gigabyte card. My motherboard (Gigabyte Z170MX Gaming 5 V1.0) has a Thunderbolt header, but no support in the BIOS. In another thread (http://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/working-gigabyte-gc-thunderbolt-2-on-skylake-mostly.189834/) I found a copy of a BIOS available that enables Thunderbolt support on the board. (This BIOS works, but seems to have some other minor issues - makes new entries on the boot table each time you run the BIOS and probably eventually overwrites something...reloading from time to time is necessary if you go into BIOS settings a lot).

I needed to load the Intel drivers (from Asrock) under Windows in order for Mac OS X to see/use the device...also it doesn't report itself as a Thunderbolt or PCI device. Instead, I see it's ports, display audio and the camera show up under USB, and anything Thunderbolt attached to it at boot time "just works." (I've tested a drive and the thunderbolt ethernet dongle that I used with my MacBook Air) Also, I'm feeding it video from my GTX 950 card's displayport output - and that works fine. Occasionally the USB peripherals will disappear between boots, requiring power cycle on the machine and monitor, but other than that...works like a champ!

 

[rojarrolla]

It is interesting what you are posting, I thought Thunderbolt add ons would be easier to install (like any other pci device). I have a GA-H97 Gaming 3 but, as far as Ive been researching it does not support thunderbolt, not even the ASRock card that you have since it odes not have the appropriate header connector. Do you think such thunderbolt card will ever be available, or it is technologically unfeasible?

Thanks!

 

[almafej]

Little off topic, but wanna put my confirmation out there: the ASROCK Thunderbolt 2 add-in card (AIC) DOES work with the gigabyte Z170-XP SLI motherboard under Windows 10. It's a little tricky because it seems to work only with the driver provided on cd with the AIC. I tested it with a thunderbolt soundcard Apollo Twin and went without major hiccups. I was also able to get down to a buffer of 128 (latency 6 ms), and was able to use the onboard UAD effects at a higher buffer. I think for many, this may the eliminate the need for a hackintosh.

 

[jdizzle]

Occasionally the USB peripherals will disappear between boots, requiring power cycle on the machine and monitor, but other than that...works like a champ!

Hey, are you still using the card, how is it going, have you updated your system since your last post?

 

[siacali]

Hey, are you still using the card, how is it going, have you updated your system since your last post?

Yes, running 10.12.2 as of December 2016. The only video related issues I seem to have are the common Nvidia driver issues that seem to crop up on upgrade. Occasionally (rarely) the USB bus onboard the Thunderbolt monitor fails to be recognized on restart (causing the speakers and camera to also not be recognized, never happens on cold boot). Power-cycling the monitor on reboot fixes it, and it mostly doesn't happen. Overall: seems to work fine, including thunderbolt (have tried a disk and an audio interface) and Ethernet through the monitor.

 

[Acden]

Little off topic, but wanna put my confirmation out there: the ASROCK Thunderbolt 2 add-in card (AIC) DOES work with the gigabyte Z170-XP SLI motherboard under Windows 10.

Do you have any experience with hackintosh?

 

[rnbcharles]

Hello everyone! Sorry for getting on this thread late as I'm new here! Does anyone know where I can find an ASRock Thunderbolt 2 AIC? I desperately need one for my ASRock Z170 Extreme4 mobo ASAP!