Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD7-TH - Thunderbolt 2.0 Testing

[froglobo]

hi lakay, i have just built my first hackintosh with this board. and i have it for the same reason the uad twin!. can you help me get the thunderbolt going?.
i read it needed to be switched on before booting the comp but when i do that i dont get past the apple load screen?


any help would be great

thank you

In this thread:
01-22-2014, 08:35 AM

#73​

Thanks to everyone who's been participating in testing this board. I've been using it for my main system for a few weeks now, and have some more info to share.

1. The Windows Thunderbolt Driver installation seems to have a firmware wakeup inside it that initializes the chip itself. If we could change the firmware that is loaded into the chip, we could make it identify as Apple Thunderbolt. This seems to pertain to both the Z87X-UP5-TH and the Z87X-UP7-TH. The driver can only be loaded by installing Windows and running the mb_driver_thunderbolt.exe file available at Gigabyte's site here. We will investigate other ways to install the firmware/driver, or modify it.

2. Although this board works fine with DSDT-Free installation, the DSDT patch for the Z87X-UP7-TH is now available in PJALM's repo. It does not contain any Thunderbolt fixes. We are working on some stuff that could help.

3. There are 2 network devices on this board. The Intel i210 Ethernet is absolutely native- no need to install any Intel kext for that connection. I recommend using this port if you only need 1 connection. If you need a second connection install hnak's driver from MultiBeast to enable the Intel i217 Ethernet chip.​

 

[sldgvlkm]

anybody tried "thunderbolt networking" ? mac to mac ?

i have a gigabyte z87x-ud7-th

i cant get it to work because it wont show in the network settings

 

[PJALM]

Thunderbolt on hacks won't show as Thunderbolt. So, OS X will not see it as such. Therefore, it only works on real macs, sorry.

 

[guitaristz]

When installing does it matter if the driver is 32bit or 64? I just used Wind732bit so hop that work with OSX 64 bit. thanks.

 

[neliuz]

Hey Palagius

Reading that you are using the Thunderbolt Display. How is the HD 4600 graphics from the CPU ?
Thinking of using a thunderbolt display since i have it lol...

 

[Palagius]

Hey Palagius

Reading that you are using the Thunderbolt Display. How is the HD 4600 graphics from the CPU ?
Thinking of using a thunderbolt display since i have it lol...

Hey back. Performance-wise it was fine. Unfortunately when I was doing it (which I think was in 10.9) I had a lot of struggles with the devices attached via the display not working. The FaceTime camera, onboard audio, even the Ethernet adapter would often just cease to be connected to the system. I believe this was because of the difficulty in getting the display to be seen as a Thunderbolt device rather than something hung directly off the PCI bus.

From the standpoint of just using it as a display I was happy with it. In the case of that box, I built it for my wife because Apple kept not refreshing the Mac Mini and her old Mini was ancient. Once they refreshed the Mini I ended up buying one and dropping the combination of TB display and hackintosh. So really I was only using the TB display with that build for maybe another few months after posting here.

Sorry I couldn't be more help.

 

[redmanarts]

Tonymacx86 seems to be using this as his main rig still - actually an identical rig to mine. I wonder what his config.plist is like and if he is using a manually edited dsdt or the one that clover produces as I get freezes now occasionally (I was very stable for a long time but I might have messed something up when updating IDK)

 

[tonymacx86]

Just updated this build (still my main rig) to Sierra running a Radeon HD 7970- FakePCIID_XHCIMux.kext and FakePCIID.kext still working for full USB3 support.

Interesting tidbit- Thunderbolt 2.0 ports are now showing in System Profiler > Thunderbolt.

 

[Palagius]

Just updated this build (still my main rig) to Sierra running a Radeon HD 7970- FakePCIID_XHCIMux.kext and FakePCIID.kext still working for full USB3 support.

Interesting tidbit- Thunderbolt 2.0 ports are now showing in System Profiler > Thunderbolt.

That is quite interesting. You were already up and running, I take it. I am curious if that means the whole dance of installing Windows to get the TB firmware installed is no longer required.

Good info.

 

[tonymacx86]

That is quite interesting. You were already up and running, I take it. I am curious if that means the whole dance of installing Windows to get the TB firmware installed is no longer required.

Good info.

I'm sure it is required still, although i don't have a fresh Z87X board to test. Sierra running great on this rig.