ASUS ThunderboltEX II PCIe Expansion Card - Testing Thread

[Yoga]

Quick question for those with this working...

1) Does it still need the windows install trick to be recognised by the mobo?

I have an Asus Maximus Hero VIII which I hear supports this card.

2) anyone got it working with El Capitan / Skylake?

Cheers!

 

[mm2margaret]

So, my ThunderboltEX Dual card is not working in OSX for me.

I got it from Amazon.DE just in case others are wondering.

I installed it and in Windows 8.1, added drivers and connected a Thunderbolt drive to make sure it was being seen, and the drive was seen, and I was able to access it.

I then booted into my functioning OSX drive and I couldn't even boot.

The background: Asus X99-A/USB 3.1 (latest bios for this board, 2001), 32 GB of memory, GTX 980 card, 5820k CPU running on 10.10.5.

Only two cards are in the system: the GPU, at slot 1, closest to the CPU, and the Thunderbolt card at 16_4, furthest away from the CPU (for my board, 16_4 is the card farthest away). I did try with the Thunderbolt card in 16_3 and that didn't work either.

Bios settings:

CSM is off
Asmedia USB 3.1 is disabled
Serial port is disabled
Booting is set to "other OS"
AIC Location group CPU0 NB PCIE Slot
AIC Location NB PCIE X16_4
Tried cache sizes of 32 and 128 neither worked
Tried unique ID and Legacy, neither worked
Tried different speeds for the slots: Auto and X4

And could never boot:




Then I found this post: https://nickwoodhams.com/x99-hackint...ocation-block/
and I put his test2.efi in my hidden efi partition /EFI/CLOVER/drivers64UEFI on a known good secondary drive that's booted before (it's a clone of my original drive, and it's worked before).

I got a little further, but not much:




So, has anyone any ideas?

Have the folks that have gotten this to work, are you working with Clover or Chameleon/Chimera?

 

[zengibabu]

Mine works with clover.

Thunderbolt security in bios= Legacy

And the PCI card in the little x4 slot (I had to take my gpu down.

like this picture:

 

[pet1]

I have an asus z97-a usb 3.1 with El capitan. I have the thunderbolt card installed but no thunderbolt hardware at the moment. So my testing is limited right now. But fundamentally, I need to get the correct info moving forward. It currently shows up in the bios. I have installed it on the last slot and the gpu on the first one. But, can I install the drivers on windows 7 to initialize the card? Or does it have to be 8.1? Also, do the display ports on the motherboard and thunderbolt card have to be connected? In addition, can It be used in X1 mode rather than X2. Enabling M2 would terminate my express mini slots which one is currently wifi. And, do I have to enable onboard graphics as well(HD4600)? Because right now it's just add-on video(740 GT). Thanks.

 

[rdogg2000]

I have an asus z97-a usb 3.1 with El capitan. I have the thunderbolt card installed but no thunderbolt hardware at the moment. So my testing is limited right now. But fundamentally, I need to get the correct info moving forward. It currently shows up in the bios. I have installed it on the last slot and the gpu on the first one. But, can I install the drivers on windows 7 to initialize the card? Or does it have to be 8.1? Also, do the display ports on the motherboard and thunderbolt card have to be connected? In addition, can It be used in X1 mode rather than X2. Enabling M2 would terminate my express mini slots which one is currently wifi. And, do I have to enable onboard graphics as well(HD4600)? Because right now it's just add-on video(740 GT). Thanks.

I have an Asus Sabertooth Z97 MK1 with an I7 4790k and I used Windows 7 to install my Thunderbolt EXii card. Even after performing a BIOS update the card still worked without me having to load the drivers. Make sure to set PCI to x4 in bios. No hot swapping and with mine I have to have a device plugged in to it while booting for it to be recognized.

 

[stq]

crazy question,

has anyone tried to throw this card in a MacPro 5.1 and see if it works? (or if it doing anything) \

You would be able to add more gpu's and uad hardware to the mix, and plenty of people interested in getting thunderbolt over 5.1 towers,

thx!

 

[tonymacx86]

crazy question,

has anyone tried to throw this card in a MacPro 5.1 and see if it works? (or if it doing anything) \

You would be able to add more gpu's and uad hardware to the mix, and plenty of people interested in getting thunderbolt over 5.1 towers,

thx!

Answer- you need both a PCIe slot and a Thunderbolt header on the motherboard in order to plug in and use the card- Mac Pro towers don't have the header.

 

[thenightflyer]

Answer- you need both a PCIe slot and a Thunderbolt header on the motherboard in order to plug in and use the card- Mac Pro towers don't have the header.

 

[mm2margaret]

Well, sometimes, when you're desperate......This was my final pass at Thunderbolt on my Asus X-99A/USB 3.1 motherboard. After this, I was going to just sell my Thunderbolt equipment and walk away.....
BUT, as it turned out, my final pass worked!

Here's what worked for me:

• Clover version: 3354, latest version (I think)
  
• Same kexts as rbbunmc used (that guy should get medals!!! Great work!), but of course, my Voodoo kext is different because I have an i5820k...
• Computer type iMac 14,2 (I suspect this could be changed to MacPro 5,1 or 6,1)

Motherboard Bios settings (more general):

• ​Bios Version: 2001

• Int19: postponed
• Fastboot: on or off worked, didn't seem to matter, actually
• 4G: off, not on (on caused boot failures)
• OS Type: other
• CSM: off
• Serial port: off
• USB 3.1: disabled
• Slot: PCI 16_2 (this slot is the slot to use on my board - this slot is the only one recognized in Windows 8.1, and which actually works with thunderbolt devices). Speed must be changed to Auto (X4 does not work! - at least on my board this stops the system from booting)
• And, I almost forgot: I am loading test2.efi from Nick Woodhams)

Thunderbolt settings (those not listed here I left at default):

• Legacy
• Wake off
• AIC on
• Cache 128
• SW: On
• Ignore ROM: on
• SwSMI 0
• TB Device I/O off

And I deleted all Thunderbolt and Bluetooth kexts in S/L/E.

In my system I have a WiFi card (recommended TP-Link) and a Firewire card. Both seemed to work and worked with the single port TB Card, with a TB drive attached. I do not have Bluetooth, and I don't know if I'll bother, frankly. I like the OEM Apple full size keyboard a lot, and I have a $10 wireless mouse from Amazon basics, and I love them both. Works for me.

I tried both the Dual TB card and the single port TB card. The Dual TB Card seemed like more trouble (perhaps with more cache adjustments, it might have been okay, but the one TB ports card seemed better, and that's fine with me. I tested the single port card with a Thunderbolt drive and an Apple Thunderbolt to Ethernet adapter and both worked. The single port card also worked well in Windows 8.1. Just seemed better, and plenty for me.

It did not appear to me that I lost any USB 3 ports, but I haven't completely checked, so not sure about that. My front and rear USB 3 ports seemed fine.

While this worked for me and my system board, I doubt it will apply to other Asus X99 boards. Each board seems to require it's own configuration and settings.

I used almost identical kexts as rbbunmc used in his posts on this thread. To rbbunmc: thank you very much, fantastic work!

 

[piotrradziemski]

Hi guys,

I read all this topic but still can't get my Thunderbolt EX II dual work with Asus X99 motherboard.

Conf:

Asus X99 Deluxe - 2101 bios version
i7 5960x
Thunderbolt EX II Dual
one Asus GTX 960

I'm using Win only (yeeeh, I know . I was trying to install all in 7, 8.1 and win 10. Every time with same results.

Card is recognized in bios - with no problem. Then I'm booting to windows and try to connect my QNAP 871T NAS server - nothing happend. I can find card in windows devices manager but nothing more.

I was trying with lots of options - different PCIe slots, different bios setting. Do you have any ideas what more can I do?