[In progress] SSDT for Thunderbolt 3 Hotplug

[MrLowndes]

For many Gigabyte user with 300_Series chipsets, the hotplug now works perfectly!
Seems that the TB hotplug is BIOS-dependent.

What you need:
It is necessary to update/downgrade the BIOS to a specific version that shows this description:

1. Update CPU microcode for upcoming CPU
2. Improve windows boot time

For example for the GB Z370 Ultra Gaming is the F10.
View attachment 382026
Remember to clean the CMOS after bios update and use the appropriate settings for your OS.

At this point in the section Peripherals/Thunderbolt, use these settings:
IMPORTANT!! Do not change the settings inside the red square!! They could kill your PCI-TB card.
View attachment 382028

Save everything and boot your system. I suggest doing an NVRAM reset by pressing f11 on the clover screen.

Now download the SSDT TB from the kgp guide, or use the one pre-edited on this thread: DOWNLOAD SSDT-Z370-THB3HP
No other clover settings are needed. Reboot, et voilà!

Hey, so I'm not sure if you're updating this 1st post anymore but I want to point out some things that I think are misleading:
- I have the Z370 gaming 7 (non-ultra), the BIOS F7 for my motherboard has the description you specify (Update CPU microcode for upcoming CPU, and Improve Windows Boot time), but I had no success with hot-swap at F7. I flashed to F10 and had no change either way.
- The statement "many Gigabyte user with 300_Series chipsets, the hotplug now works perfectly!" is misleading. If this were true, it would be easier to find evidence of this online, but after many hours of searching I cannot find anyone else with the 300 chipset who has hotswap thunderbolt capability.
- I appreciate your "idiot mini guide to change the SSDTs ACPI path", but is it complete? According to the kgp guide, many numbers need to be replaced. If the guide is truly for idiots, otherwise known as beginners like me, then it should be a complete guide. As it stands, it just starts you off meddling in code, but I get the feeling the job isn't finished. Not least because I still don't have full TB functionality. It's just enough info to be dangerous but not actually helpful.

I know that you say many times that this is not a guide but a discussion. But as I read through the pages and pages of this thread I saw you update the 1st post several times so I thought it would be useful for it to be more complete and for it to manage people's expectations a little better. On first reading I thought, great! I have those components! I can have thunderbolt! An alpine ridge card and two days of work later, after many many hours pulling out my hair, pulling apart my machine, reinstalling mac os and Windows, reading these interminably long threads and I am no closer to having Thunderbolt functionality. In fact, my BIOS no longer even shows the thunderbolt options anymore, and even windows won't install the TB software - and no it wasn't the BIOS update that did it. Maybe I fried something? I would love to be of more use to the community, but in order to do that, the information to get me started needs to be better documented, easier to find, and clearer. I know I kind of signed up for headaches when I decided to build a hackintosh, but there are a lot of really smart people on this website, surely we can get a little bit more order going forward. Thanks. Rant over

 

[MrLowndes]

Hi Lele. Just adding another piece of the puzzle I noticed recently, (maybe not big news though)...without the THB-C cable after a shutdown (not a reboot) the card is no longer detected even by the BIOS and it obviously becomes invisible on Mac OS.
This issue should be related to what tonyarnold is reporting ...

This happened to me. My BIOS won't see the TB card anymore. How did you get it back? Remove, reinsert the TB card?

 

[MrLowndes]

I edited the SSDT-TB3 and got this result.View attachment 332960
Didn't insert the Clover patch. Still have to test hotplugging correctly.

Cool! Did hotplugging end up working? Do I need to use the DTST file too? Do I need to edit that?

 

[MrLowndes]

Today I replaced my Thunderbolt card and... OMG the hotplug now works with the THB_C cable connected and without having devices on at startup!!!
Probably the cause of this is the new BIOS for the Z370 series.

For those who want to try, here's what I did:
- Updated BIOS to the latest version (F10 in my case)
- Install the PCI TB card and connect the THB_C cable (if you have not already done)

These are the settings I used in the BIOS:
Do not touch the setting (I "burned" my TB card, see previous posts): Thunderbolt(TM) enumeration mode
View attachment 349407

The SSDT used is the same as I had before: SSDT for METHOD 2.

The only flaw (if you can say so), is that I have to keep the ERP disabled (setting in the POWER section of the BIOS), because otherwise my dock Thunderbolt does not turn on automatically but I have to unplug the cable and reconnect it, or turn it off and turn it on again. This is strange and I will try to ask Gigabyte support in the near future (which now seems to be working on the problem of the "Thunderbolt(TM) enumeration MODE" setting).

Have a nice THUNDERBOLT DAY

What is ERP?

 

[MrLowndes]

Your DSDT is too chaotic, there are a lot of useless patches and some are wrong.
For example, look the USB ports, you see that they are not mapped correctly, so I do not know what benefits this DSDT can bring you. I advise you to remove it and use only the TB SSDT (from method 2) that you find in the first post.
Use the Rehabman guide to create a specifically SSDT for USB ports.

what is the purpose of the DSDT?

 

[MrLowndes]

I start all over with help from this site:
https://climbjoe.tv/build-hackintos...-13-317d2102-intel-8th-generation-cpu-system/

what does the DSDT do?

 

[MrLowndes]

Hmm. Unfortunate.

Part of me still feels that the DSDT isn't perfect for all devices, and that's where the issue lies. When I experimented with Methods 1, 2, and 3 that I found here, it was showing my device as a "Media Card" and giving me a 'eject media card' icon in the upper right hand tray area.

It wasn't until I started messing around with the DSDT that I was able to get that to go away, and was finally able to get OSX to properly list my Focusrite Clarett under the System Report. It feels one step closer, but obviously not perfect yet. Sadly, I have no idea what I'm really doing with the DSDT edits and am more or less randomly throwing darts at a target hoping for something to hit.

I suspect that this device (as well as others) don't properly conform 100% to the DSDT's that are listed here, while some obviously do. I can't help but feel that the evidence of my device not being properly recognized more or less supports that theory, and going along with that - I suspect the reason hotplug isn't working for my device (and likely others) is simply that those methods for getting hotplug support to work, aren't properly tied to the device and what it needs. I wish I had a better understanding of it so that I could work on trying to get everything to play nicely.


In either case - I'm still waiting for my new Alpine Ridge card to get here so that I have a card where both Port 1 and 2 work - that may shed some additional light on getting this to work properly, or... my card right now may have something else broken in it too. Who knows.

what does a DSDT file do?

 

[MrLowndes]

Hey there! All working fine here now.
If u want to use the DSDT u must update to the latest bios.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=11kdBFEG2ugU06HhfzHqhsQiJG5Mz4gnO

Hi can you go into some more detail about how you got everything working? What is a DSDT file?

 

[MrLowndes]

Well, it turns out the BIOS version for GB Z370 Gaming 7 with the same description is F7.
After downgrading to F7, still the same: all video output's gone if I try to connect after sleep.

I had the same experience. Did you get hotplug working?

 

[crismac2013]

@MrLowndes if the card disappear turn off your machine;then restart, go to the bios with your thunderbolt device still plugged and see if it has become visible. When it does check your TH bios parameters and reset the SL0 security one.