ASUS X-299 Deluxe II - Thunderbolt Solution?

[joeblough]

i guess things kind of stalled out. i don't know if i should share maleorderbride's SSDT without asking him. i also don't know if it makes sense to use his SSDT without flashing the firmware, which is kind of involved. x299 is not CaseySJ's main emphasis so maybe he had other things to work on in z390/z490 land.

what we had going was not perfect - i need to have a USB-C hub that also has a USB2 hub in it as well (like the anker 7-in-1) in order for the port to power up. if that's not plugged in the TB chip is missing from IOReg completely.

 

[samtimbaud]

i guess things kind of stalled out. i don't know if i should share maleorderbride's SSDT without asking him. i also don't know if it makes sense to use his SSDT without flashing the firmware, which is kind of involved. x299 is not CaseySJ's main emphasis so maybe he had other things to work on in z390/z490 land.

what we had going was not perfect - i need to have a USB-C hub that also has a USB2 hub in it as well (like the anker 7-in-1) in order for the port to power up. if that's not plugged in the TB chip is missing from IOReg completely.

But how you flashed integrat thunderbolt card firmware on x299 deluxe II ?

 

[joeblough]

But how you flashed integrat thunderbolt card firmware on x299 deluxe II ?

i dumped out the rom with a raspberry pi 4 and an SOIC clip and then casey patched it and sent it back to me. i then flashed it with that new rom. he has detailed instructions in his z390 thread on how to do this.

 

[samtimbaud]

i dumped out the rom with a raspberry pi 4 and an SOIC clip and then casey patched it and sent it back to me. i then flashed it with that new rom. he has detailed instructions in his z390 thread on how to do this.

Oh god is too complicated for me

 

[joeblough]

yeah i have a lot of hardware lab experience so this was pretty easy for me. but i can see how it would be difficult for most people. it did require taking the motherboard out of the case becase at least on my nzxt 510 the cutout behind the processor is too small and does not expose the whole chip so i can't get the clip on.

 

[Rocnroll]

I want to buy asus Prime X299 Edition 30, Just for installing Hackintosh System,
I think it's very similar to Deluxe II
I mainly use the hackintosh system and I am not interested in Windows,
Is this a good choice? (X299 Edition 30)
What is a better choice than this?

Any idea?

Regards

Have you found any information for the Asus Prime x299 Edition 30 for Hackintosh compatability?

 

[mishar]

Firstly, thank you to all the contributors to this arena!! I'm kind of one of the lurkers and have spent a great deal of time gleaning all sorts of information together from the many different forums. And I'm sure there are many of us, but I wanted to mention how much I appreciate all the work that has gone into this from everyone and I wouldn't have any of this working without you.

Is there any update to getting hot-plug working on the X299 Deluxe-II board with or without flashing?

I have a decently working version with Mojave 10.14.6 and Catalina 10.15.6 running well (using Opencore 0.6.1/BIOS 3105). Thunderbolt devices are recognized and functioning on boot, but hot-plug certainly has been elusive.

I would appreciate if anyone could duplicate the following behaviour and confirm.

In regards to the Thunderbolt behaviour I ran a test a couple of days ago as I was trying to get hot-plug working on the macOS side, and could not get the XHCI driver to be recognized not matter which SSDT I tried, and I tried many! And from KGP's guide I understand this is an imperative to getting TB working properly. I also tried using a flashed GC Titan-Ridge card in a pcie slot, but stumbled on many issues, so I reverted back to trying to get the onboard TB working properly.

So I tried this. In the Windows 10 side if you try and hot-plug a USB-Drive or any USB device for that matter into one of the Thunderbolt/USB-C ports, does it actually work for you?! Because it certainly doesn't for me.

Things I tried to get it working:
-Roll back Thunderbolt drivers to previous version(s)
-I went through, re-flashed all Bios versions starting with 0210 I believe.
-Re-installed Windows 10 1909

None of the above would alleviate the fact that I could not hot-plug really any USB3 device into the USB-C port.
When cold plugged, the drive would of course show up, but then after unplugging, could not be remounted. Checking in the Device Manager I could see the Thunderbolt Driver (I have Force Power in BIOS enabled) and also the USB3.1 Driver show when the drive was mounted. However without the drive mounted only the Thunderbolt driver would show.

I did stumble on something by chance though. I have a little USB-A to C dongle adapter that I use for my Macbook Pro and I was using that to test together with a USB 3 Drive. If I left just the dongle in, but the drive not attached, then the USB3.1 Driver would be activated in Windows, and I could actually hot-plug anything into the USB-A connector and it would work!

It would thus seem the plug sense signal is obviously not being sent or transmitted properly.
Hence I'm suspecting that there is either a BIOS or Thunderbolt firmware issue that is actually not functioning as it should (in comparison the GC Titan Ridge that I got working in my other build). Either that or my board is actually F#$%d!

Either way I believe this could be probably one of the primary reasons that hot-plug is not really working on this board, on the macOS side, as it would appear it's also not working correctly on the Windows side either. I do recall I think it was @dez saying he had it working initially, but then it broke (around 10.15.3 release time Jan this year at guess). Since I went through all the BIOS flashbacks to no avail, my gut tells me it could possibly be the TB firmware that's the culprit here.

If anyone could try this out to confirm, that would be fantastic. I already submitted a tech support request with ASUS and they are just starting to look into it. But obviously they will take it more seriously if I can confirm this behaviour.

If it does actually work for you, can you let me know your BIOS version and Windows Thunderbolt driver version.

 

[dez]

Firstly, thank you to all the contributors to this arena!! I'm kind of one of the lurkers and have spent a great deal of time gleaning all sorts of information together from the many different forums. And I'm sure there are many of us, but I wanted to mention how much I appreciate all the work that has gone into this from everyone and I wouldn't have any of this working without you.

Is there any update to getting hot-plug working on the X299 Deluxe-II board with or without flashing?

I have a decently working version with Mojave 10.14.6 and Catalina 10.15.6 running well (using Opencore 0.6.1/BIOS 3105). Thunderbolt devices are recognized and functioning on boot, but hot-plug certainly has been elusive.

I would appreciate if anyone could duplicate the following behaviour and confirm.

In regards to the Thunderbolt behaviour I ran a test a couple of days ago as I was trying to get hot-plug working on the macOS side, and could not get the XHCI driver to be recognized not matter which SSDT I tried, and I tried many! And from KGP's guide I understand this is an imperative to getting TB working properly. I also tried using a flashed GC Titan-Ridge card in a pcie slot, but stumbled on many issues, so I reverted back to trying to get the onboard TB working properly.

So I tried this. In the Windows 10 side if you try and hot-plug a USB-Drive or any USB device for that matter into one of the Thunderbolt/USB-C ports, does it actually work for you?! Because it certainly doesn't for me.

Things I tried to get it working:
-Roll back Thunderbolt drivers to previous version(s)
-I went through, re-flashed all Bios versions starting with 0210 I believe.
-Re-installed Windows 10 1909

None of the above would alleviate the fact that I could not hot-plug really any USB3 device into the USB-C port.
When cold plugged, the drive would of course show up, but then after unplugging, could not be remounted. Checking in the Device Manager I could see the Thunderbolt Driver (I have Force Power in BIOS enabled) and also the USB3.1 Driver show when the drive was mounted. However without the drive mounted only the Thunderbolt driver would show.

I did stumble on something by chance though. I have a little USB-A to C dongle adapter that I use for my Macbook Pro and I was using that to test together with a USB 3 Drive. If I left just the dongle in, but the drive not attached, then the USB3.1 Driver would be activated in Windows, and I could actually hot-plug anything into the USB-A connector and it would work!

It would thus seem the plug sense signal is obviously not being sent or transmitted properly.
Hence I'm suspecting that there is either a BIOS or Thunderbolt firmware issue that is actually not functioning as it should (in comparison the GC Titan Ridge that I got working in my other build). Either that or my board is actually F#$%d!

Either way I believe this could be probably one of the primary reasons that hot-plug is not really working on this board, on the macOS side, as it would appear it's also not working correctly on the Windows side either. I do recall I think it was @dez saying he had it working initially, but then it broke (around 10.15.3 release time Jan this year at guess). Since I went through all the BIOS flashbacks to no avail, my gut tells me it could possibly be the TB firmware that's the culprit here.

If anyone could try this out to confirm, that would be fantastic. I already submitted a tech support request with ASUS and they are just starting to look into it. But obviously they will take it more seriously if I can confirm this behaviour.

If it does actually work for you, can you let me know your BIOS version and Windows Thunderbolt driver version.

I haven't tried it since under Windows. Let me try with your method and get back to you over the weekend.

 

[mishar]

I haven't tried it since under Windows. Let me try with your method and get back to you over the weekend.

Thanks @dez!

I have since run a few more tests and figured out that hot-plug only seems to be working on Port 1 for Thunderbolt devices in Windows 10 as well. Behaviour for Port 2 (closest to PCIe slots) is similar to the USB-C in that it only works when cold booted but if device is removed, then it cannot be re-attached, unless I plug it into Port 1.

So it is definitely possible that it's just my board and it's a little bent in the way it's handling it. But it's also possible that it's an issue for not just myself, and the thunderbolt firmware has some issues, and that is why hot-plug is not working.

Was also wondering if @joeblough might have come across anything similar in the attempts to flash the firmware?

 

[dez]

Thanks @dez!

I have since run a few more tests and figured out that hot-plug only seems to be working on Port 1 for Thunderbolt devices in Windows 10 as well. Behaviour for Port 2 (closest to PCIe slots) is similar to the USB-C in that it only works when cold booted but if device is removed, then it cannot be re-attached, unless I plug it into Port 1.

So it is definitely possible that it's just my board and it's a little bent in the way it's handling it. But it's also possible that it's an issue for not just myself, and the thunderbolt firmware has some issues, and that is why hot-plug is not working.

Was also wondering if @joeblough might have come across anything similar in the attempts to flash the firmware?

Here are some of my findings from today:

1. I can get my drives to be detected, only if I have it plugged in before the cold-boot. Once I have Clover/OC up on the screen, it's a no-go from that point.
2. I switched to this file by CaseySJ (replacing RP21 to RP05 as is in my case): https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/in-progress-ssdt-for-thunderbolt-3-hotplug.248784/post-2183361
3. TB3 is now working under Big Sur Beta 10 for me, but same as 1. Cannot HP once the system is booted without something plugged in.
4. I have one of those USB-C to A adapters as well, so I gave that a shot. If I leave it plugged in without anything connected to it: I can then continue to plug in a drive after Big Sur has finished booting.

Considering your findings and mine, I believe we can, for now, assume that something is terribly off with TB3 Firmware on our boards, or Asus just did a bang up job wiring it up all wrong (PCH instead of CPU).

As for the ports, I have both working, luckily. So one of your ports not working seems to be a localised issue.

I can't be very sure, but I think we should get in touch with Intel and Asus on this, and see if they have any updated drivers or ROM that we can use.