[In progress] SSDT for Thunderbolt 3 Hotplug

[canyondust]

I only got mine working recently. I built the machine in late June and it's been a VSL/VEP6 slave running Windows. It's a real <blank> scratcher, because if it works in the BIOS setup and in Windows 10 (both ports + hotplug) it seems that it should work. For me, I'd never buy another Thunderbolt interface because of this hassle, but I would buy a PCIe-based Lynx or SSL if I could make use of the power switch on the converters. Something's definitely throttling bandwidth with my bank of SSDs via the Thunderbolt 2 BMD Multidock. Even the internal SSD on my Mini 6,2 is testing faster. Not a lot, but enough to know that even daisy-chained –Computer ➡︎ Multidock 2 ➡︎ Apollo 8– the Thunderbolt 2 bus (TB 2 because of the dongles) should not be saturated: The SSD speed should be identical because it's all SATA6. Odd.

Is your graphics in 16x or 8x? I wonder if your TB card is sharing lanes or on PCH?

 

[jiffyslot]

Is your graphics in 16x or 8x? I wonder if your TB card is sharing lanes or on PCH?

Maybe it was in this discussion that I read that this mobo (Z370 Aorus Gaming 7) only allows their card to use PCH lanes. I thought the point of Thunderbolt was that it was tied directly to the CPU.

The GPU is on the PCIe16x -The GC Alpine Ridge is supposed to go in the very last PCIe slot. It's not sharing lanes, but if I moved it, it would. To get your money's worth out of a dedicated GPU, it needs to be in that x16 slot. In addition, my GPU is double-width. What's odd is that the GPU shows in the system report, but not in the list of PCI devices. The performance from the card is very good. Good benchmarks, etc. The Apollo 8 also performs well and the latency is very low. I've been able to repeat the "half-speed" performance of the Thunderbolt BMD Multidock 2 on a real 2012 QC Mini (6,2) -it's only a few MB/s slower than when it's on the Hack and the Apollo is daisy chained to that. I'm using real Apple TB2 cables and Apollo TB3 to TB2 dongles with identical dongle and cable firmware.

Q: Has anyone considered that this problem lies inherent in Thunderbolt cable firmware? There's a lot of fancy stuff inside of that connector.

Using the 2012 Mac Mini (6,2) with a Samsung 860 EVO 1TB with the BMD MultiDock 2 via Thunderbolt:


Inside the Hack's via the internal SATA6 bus with the Samsung 860 EVO 1TB:

 

[Consigliere]

It's normal, simply because the hotplug does not work.
Connect the THB_C cable, then try to update the bios to the latest version and add the SSDT of method 2 (adapted to your ACPI table, of course)
Then let us know if anything changes

Ah, too bad I thought I was on to something. :/
I already have the THB_C connected, your SSDT of method 2 adapted to my table (RP05-RP21) and latest bios. Weird.
What might I be missing?

 

[jiffyslot]

I just found an interesting video that addresses Thunderbolt -but in a different way, talking about the Platform Reset Connections, etc. Eh, never mind, there are commercial aspects to it that I didn't see. Sorry about that...

 

[LeleTuratti]

Ah, too bad I thought I was on to something. :/
I already have the THB_C connected, your SSDT of method 2 adapted to my table (RP05-RP21) and latest bios. Weird.
What might I be missing?

Everything seems correct, have you tried the F10 BIOS for Gaming 5?
If it does not work I do not know what the reason is.. Gaming 7 had the same problem, I can not remember if there were any developments then.

 

[jiffyslot]

There are reports of F10 overvolting the CPU, presumably because GB made this version for the X series CPU. So, if you want to use it with the i7 8700, you may have manually reduce the voltage. YMMV.

 

[imgarrett]

So I just saw the new Gigabyte Z390 Xtreme board with an onboard Thunderbolt controller and with 2 built-in usb-c thunderbolt ports. What are everyone's thoughts? Sounds like it might make things easier on us having a mobo with native thunderbolt no?

 

[NorthAmTransAm]

So I just saw the new Gigabyte Z390 Xtreme board with an onboard Thunderbolt controller and with 2 built-in usb-c thunderbolt ports. What are everyone's thoughts? Sounds like it might make things easier on us having a mobo with native thunderbolt no?

I'm willing to bet its the same amount of hassle. To be clear though once you get a grasp on your TB working it continues to work. I do hope one day for it to be seamless like a Macs TB.

 

[Consigliere]

Everything seems correct, have you tried the F10 BIOS for Gaming 5?
If it does not work I do not know what the reason is.. Gaming 7 had the same problem, I can not remember if there were any developments then.

I have the F10 right now. There has to be some bios or clover.plist setting that I totally missed?

 

[dmitry_matora]

Tried SSDT-TB3.aml (V2) with RP15 instead of RP05, on Dell XPS 9560 and got hotplug working, but with sleep either crashing pc entirely, either destroying TB3 hotplug.
Then tried SSDT-TB3.aml (V1) with RP15 instead of RP05, and both sleep and TB3 hotplug working perfectly (resuming from sleep doesn't kill hotplug)
Thanks to everyone involved, particularly to @auguzanellato for building the patch for me, I pretty much have no idea what I am doing