[In progress] SSDT for Thunderbolt 3 Hotplug

[brunogermain]

I just reviewed the motherboard's specifications on Gigabyte website. It is quite old. Apple has declared a number of their own computers as "End of Support", and those are even newer than this board!

It would be best to direct your time and energy to a current-generation system.

I know... TB support was the only thing missing on this machine that's been constantly working great since 2011 (starting with Snow Leopard and now with Mojave). I just thought I could give it a shot...
Thank you so much for your help @CaseySJ ! I learned a lot from your guides and your posts

 

[giacomoleopardo]

I'm having issues on hot-plug. Basically it doesn't work. Maybe somebody can point me in what I am missing, here.
ASUS PRIME Z690M-PLUS D4
Intel 12700KF
Sapphire AMD Radeon RX 6600 8 GB
Gigabyte GC Titan Ridge v 2.0 with custom firmware (GC-Titan-Ridge-V2.0-Mod-NVM50-CaseySJ.bin)
OC 0.8.8
macOS Ventura 13.1

What I did:

• Flashed thunderbolt card with custom firmware
• Shortcut pin 1 to pin 3 of the card
• Installed the TH card on slot 4 of the motherboard
• Booted without SSDT HackinDROM to note native card UID and PCI path (PC00.RP21)
• Created SSDT with HackinDROM with:
  • Gigabyte GC-Titan Ridge - Z690 Platform
    
    Spoiler: HackinDROM menu

    
  • Custom UID (native UID after booting without SSDDT HackinDROM)
    
    Spoiler: Native card UID

    

    
  • Replaced RP05 with RP21 (as noted in IOReg pre-SSDT HackinDROM)
    Spoiler: Replace RP05 with RP21

    
• Added SSDT-DMAR, SSDT-TB3-HackinDROM and SSDT-DTPG in EFI/OC/ACPI
• Activated VT-D in bios and DisableIoMapper as False in EFI/OC/config.plist

I don't have any thunderbolt device: my tests are usb type C based.
I reckon after booting with SSDT HackinDROM that IOReg is showing XHC3 (as well as Hackintool).

Spoiler: XHC3 in IOReg

That's it. No hot-plug at all.
I just can see 40 Gb/s as expected

Spoiler: 40 Gb/s

Any ideas?

Attached

• IOReg_no_SSDT_HackinDR (pre-SSDT)
• IOReg_SSDT_HackinDR
• EFI folder

 

[Azimuth1]

I'm having issues on hot-plug. Basically it doesn't work. Maybe somebody can point me in what I am missing, here.
ASUS PRIME Z690M-PLUS D4
Intel 12700KF
Sapphire AMD Radeon RX 6600 8 GB
Gigabyte GC Titan Ridge v 2.0 with custom firmware (GC-Titan-Ridge-V2.0-Mod-NVM50-CaseySJ.bin)
OC 0.8.8
macOS Ventura 13.1

What I did:

• Flashed thunderbolt card with custom firmware
• Shortcut pin 1 to pin 3 of the card
• Installed the TH card on slot 4 of the motherboard
• Booted without SSDT HackinDROM to note native card UID and PCI path (PC00.RP21)
• Created SSDT with HackinDROM with:
  • Gigabyte GC-Titan Ridge - Z690 Platform
    
    Spoiler: HackinDROM menu

    View attachment 561607
  • Custom UID (native UID after booting without SSDDT HackinDROM)
    
    Spoiler: Native card UID

    View attachment 561608View attachment 561610
  • Replaced RP05 with RP21 (as noted in IOReg pre-SSDT HackinDROM)
    Spoiler: Replace RP05 with RP21

    View attachment 561609
• Added SSDT-DMAR, SSDT-TB3-HackinDROM and SSDT-DTPG in EFI/OC/ACPI
• Activated VT-D in bios and DisableIoMapper as False in EFI/OC/config.plist

I don't have any thunderbolt device: my tests are usb type C based.
I reckon after booting with SSDT HackinDROM that IOReg is showing XHC3 (as well as Hackintool).

Spoiler: XHC3 in IOReg

View attachment 561611View attachment 561614

That's it. No hot-plug at all.
I just can see 40 Gb/s as expected

Spoiler: 40 Gb/s

View attachment 561615

Any ideas?

Attached

• IOReg_no_SSDT_HackinDR (pre-SSDT)
• IOReg_SSDT_HackinDR
• EFI folder

very interesting! Any progress on this?
@CaseySJ do you have any suggestion?

 

[rufus1970]

Hi,
I have a Gigabyte B365M D3H with 40gbs showing. SSDT must have come from here, but it's been a couple of years and not sure where exactly. If anyone is able to help me troubleshoot hotplug, what would I have to upload? Cheers!

 

[giacomoleopardo]

very interesting! Any progress on this?

Unfortunately not. No thunderbolt devices available to test TH hotplug, but USB3 hotplug definitely not working for me. I've even tried a second GC Titan Ridge 2.0 and a couple of modified firmwares.
Hotplug is working on Ethernet over Thunderbolt, though.

 

[CaseySJ]

very interesting! Any progress on this?
@CaseySJ do you have any suggestion?

Some comments:

• When top and middle pins are connected, we typically should not connect Thunderbolt header. But it’s okay to experiment with header connected and disconnected
• There are 2 kinds of USB-C devices: those that work at USB 3.x speeds and those that work only at USB 2 speeds
• Apple iPhones with lightning to USB-C connector work at USB 2 speeds
• It may not be possible to connect USB 2 devices to the USB-C ports on GC-Titan Ridge unless we also connect the on-board USB 2 headers to motherboard
• But USB 3.x devices should connect to USB-C ports
• We should also realize that not all USB-C cables support USB 3 speeds!! When we buy a USB-C cable we must check the specifications or product description to ensure that it supports USB 3 speeds

 

[zipb]

Some comments:

• When top and middle pins are connected, we typically should not connect Thunderbolt header. But it’s okay to experiment with header connected and disconnected
• There are 2 kinds of USB-C devices: those that work at USB 3.x speeds and those that work only at USB 2 speeds
• Apple iPhones with lightning to USB-C connector work at USB 2 speeds
• It may not be possible to connect USB 2 devices to the USB-C ports on GC-Titan Ridge unless we also connect the on-board USB 2 headers to motherboard
• But USB 3.x devices should connect to USB-C ports
• We should also realize that not all USB-C cables support USB 3 speeds!! When we buy a USB-C cable we must check the specifications or product description to ensure that it supports USB 3 speeds

@CaseySJ:
Quick question, if you don't mind. I can get an open box

GC-TITAN RIDGE​

Not clear if its vs 1 or 2. Does it make a difference? Should go in a Z790...

 

[CaseySJ]

@CaseySJ:
Quick question, if you don't mind. I can get an open box

GC-TITAN RIDGE​

Not clear if its vs 1 or 2. Does it make a difference? Should go in a Z790...

Either Rev 1 or Rev 2 is okay. Both of them work the same. I have two Rev 1s. Not sure if I ever purchased a Rev 2…

 

[zipb]

Nice. Got it. For a good price.

 

[soapmak3r]

Here is where I am at with TB3 hotswap right now:
I used to have to to get to the Opencore boot selector, power on my TB audio interface (UAD Apollo Twin MK2), boot to the Mac login screen, restart, power cycle the audio interface, then boot into MacOS, and only then would it connect successfully.

In the last couple of weeks, I have updated my Opencore install to Ventura, with a handful of obstacles that I had to overcome.
I then decided that it could be interesting to experiment with ChatGPT and the new Bing variant to see if it could help me to figure out how to get the TB hotswap working correctly.
I asked Bing about guiding me through the process of enabling TB3 hotswap on an Opencore install, using my ASRock Fatal1ty Z370 Gaming-ITX/ac motherboard, and it actually provided links to some github repositories for my board model and CPU (i7 8700)!
There were downloadable EFIs in those repositories, and in them were some kexts and SSDT files specific to my hardware configuration.
In the ACPI folder there was 'SSDT-TbtOnPch.aml'. In the drivers folder there was 'TbtForcePower.efi'. In the kext folder there were two kext files that I didn't have previously. IOElectrify.kext and ThunderboltReset.kext.
I then mounted my EFI and added the files from the downloaded EFI, to my EFI after doing a back-up. I then loaded up my config.plist in OpenCore configurator, and dragged the SSDT files to the ACPI section, and the kext files across to the kernel section, then I saved my config.plist and rebooted.

The result? From a cold boot, now when I get to the boot selection screen, I can just power on my TB device, and then boot straight into MacOS. No need for the additional reboot and power cycle of the audio interface at the login screen.
If I turn my audio interface off when in the OS and turn it back on, it still doesn't reconnect, however. So it still isn't perfect, but it is a lot less inconvenient than it was.

ChatGPT in particular has been very helpful for explaining things properly, and clearly, which is something I find very lacking in the hackintosh community to be honest.
I asked it questions about the specific SSDTs, kexts, what order kext files should be in in OCC, boot arguments, editing config.plists etc.
Very useful learning tool!