(Help) Alienware M15 R1 thunderbolt to connect EGPU

[MOTELHOTEL]

Hi,

I need help. My config is as below.

Alienware M15 R1
CPU i7-8750H with Intel UHD 630
Nvidia GTX 1060 6gb
Ram 16g 2400hz
M.2 SSD 1tb + 1tb
HDD 1tb

I've got Catalina installed in my laptop and I know that a lot of you managed to use EGPU in your laptops.

I'm stuck where that I need to change or patch SSDT TB to actually detect my EGPU.

I'm adding my EFI for my Alienware and screen shot of the thunderbolt port.

PLEASE help.

This is the only thing left to work.

 

[shiecldk]

Hey, @MOTELHOTEL I've got thunderbolt work on this laptop. The key is to disable thunderbolt security; set it to No Security. Try to boot with the efi from grub-mod-setup_var from github, and then use setup_var_3 0x4F3 0x0.

I also sent a request on win-raid and am hoping someone can unlock the bios menu "[Request] Bios Menu Unlock for Alienware m15 R1"

You can check the detail from this post: https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...derbolt-3-i7-9700k-amd-rx-580.267551/page-432

 

[MOTELHOTEL]

Hey, @MOTELHOTEL I've got thunderbolt work on this laptop. The key is to disable thunderbolt security; set it to No Security. Try to boot with the efi from grub-mod-setup_var from github, and then use setup_var_3 0x4F3 0x0.

I also sent a request on win-raid and am hoping someone can unlock the bios menu "[Request] Bios Menu Unlock for Alienware m15 R1"

Wow that is a great news!! Many people told me to something with the thunderbolt setting but I couldn’t find any configuration in my Bios. I will try your solution and let you know but it will take time, I was so frustrated and bought an MacBook Air LOL. But I still have my Alienware using as a gaming machine so I will try. It is so interesting to understand how system works !!

 

[shiecldk]

Wow that is a great news!! Many people told me to something with the thunderbolt setting but I couldn’t find any configuration in my Bios. I will try your solution and let you know but it will take time, I was so frustrated and bought an MacBook Air LOL. But I still have my Alienware using as a gaming machine so I will try. It is so interesting to understand how system works !!

Great. You can look up everything you need for the hidden bios setting, including CFG Lock, from the Setup.txt dump with ifrextract in the attachment.
Keep in mind that I'm using the bios version 2.5.0. You might have to dump yours but I assume they would the same for different bios versions.

 

[shiecldk]

@MOTELHOTL I also opened a question here for thunderbolt bus: https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...erbolt-3-i7-9700k-amd-rx-580.267551/page-2672
It would great if you want to investigate this too.

Also, I'm still working on getting the hotplug on this laptop. I found out there is a bug in ThunderboltReset.kext for the release version from Github. I edited ThunderboltReset.kext and the SSDT.

Currently, with these setups, I still have to plug in the thunderbolt device for the chip to be recognized by macOS (in PEG1). I assume we can change other thunderbolt settings in BIOS for the hotplug, but I have to try them later when I have time. The IOElectrify.kext is the key to get thunderbolt chip JHL6340 recognized by macOS on boot. Without this macOS will not activate the thunderbolt. However, it does not seem to work all the time if you check PEG1, and DSB0-DSB2 with IOReg.app

There are some details that I still don't understand if you look up "Thunderbolt 3 Fix (Part 1)" - Part 3 on Google. They seem to be the key for hotplug.

You might want to try the following attachments:

 

[shiecldk]

Also I wonder if you can get the FN+F9 and FN+F10 work for brightness control. I have to use FN+G1 and FN+END for brightness down/up. I have tried to find the ACPI events with ACPIDebug, and found the following events:

_Q0B = FN+F2 (Supposed to be WiFi on/off, but not working)
_Q0F = FN+F6 = Lock/unlock windows key
_Q12 = FN+F9 (Supposed to be Brightness Down, but not working)
_Q13 = FN+F10 (Supposed to be Brightness Up, but not working)
_Q14 = FN+F11 = Cap Lock (Supposed to disable/enable the Trackpad, but not working)

_Q81 = Close Lid
_QA0 = Plug in Power Cable
_QE2 = Plug in Thunderbolt Device

FN+Home = Disable the Trackpad

I also tried the following SSDT, but it did not work: Maybe @RehabMan could help? (I've followed the post in https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/guide-patching-dsdt-ssdt-for-laptop-backlight-control.152659/) Also, the display seems not build in? (I'm using MacBookPro15,1 SMBios)

 

[shiecldk]

@MOTELHOTEL Do you have any luck with the thunderbolt?

 

[kahuna0k]

@shiecldk I'm trying to replicate your steps but neither with my BIOS (2.1.1) or yours (2.5.0) I've been able to find the CFG Lock with the UEFITool, are you searching from something else? Also instead of PE32 images I get TE images (I suppose they are equivalent as they are also saved as .efi).

Although my Thunderbolt port is working in the sense that I can see it with IOReg when I boot with a device plugged in, the device itself is not detected (I'm using a QNAP 10G SFP+ adaptor, that should be supported in macOS out of the box).

I'm also having some issues in Linux, when the adapter is detected and enrolled (according to boltctl) but loading the corresponding module does not expose the network interface.

Hotplug support would be nice but at least I want to have basic boot-with-it-plugged working thunderbolt.

Any idea?

 

[kahuna0k]

Also about unlocking the BIOS, did you see this post in bios-mods ? I don't have an easy way to flash the ROM if it gets bricked, so I wasn't brave enough to test the provided BIOS, looking at your post in win-raid it seems that you can flash it offline, so maybe you'll have better luck.

edit: Attached the m15_1.rar as it seems that the download link in bios-mods is no longer working.

 

[kahuna0k]

@shiecldk I'm trying to replicate your steps but neither with my BIOS (2.1.1) or yours (2.5.0) I've been able to find the CFG Lock with the UEFITool, are you searching from something else? Also instead of PE32 images I get TE images (I suppose they are equivalent as they are also saved as .efi).

Ok the problem is that I was trying to read the .rom file I get from passing /writeromfile to the .exe update file from Alienware, and it seems that that's not a valid UEFI rom upgrade. Using Intel FPTW64.exe I was able to get an actual dump of the rom that was parsed by UEFITool, I can confirm that in BIOS 2.1.1 the variable is still at 0x4F3. with "No Security" (0x0) I finally get my QNAP 10G Thunderbolt adapter working when booting with it plugged in. Now, I'm trying to figure out how to make hot-plug working. Any reason why you are using the IOElectrify.kext instead of the EFI driver (TbtForcePower.efi)?