Skylake ASUS ThunderboltEX 3 Testing

[beelzebozo]

Hey beelzebozo.

oh man thank you so much! That worked. my mac os was able to start.

I went out and picked up a hard drive and windows 10. As your video suggested. I installed windows 10, i also installed the thunderboltex 3 drivers that came with the supplied CD. i restarted the computer and booted into sierra after make what ever changes i could in the bios. keep in mind the 3504 bios firm ware is different from your video. The Apollo Twin is still not being reconized by mac OS so im not sure if the thunderbolt card is even activated.

Now i have a new issue. My GTX 1060 card is no longer being reconized. It worked fine before the bios update but now it does not show up in the OS.

I am attaching screen shots to show you what i have going on. Any futher assistance would be greatly appreciated!.

Well it looks like you have Thunderbolt disabled in BIOS. As for your graphics card, not sure if you downloaded the NVIDIA web drivers and installed them. You should see something similar to my screenshot if you did install web drivers.

I would disable Thunderbolt USB support and just leave Thunderbolt enabled. I just turned my Apollo Twin on and you can see that it connected after restarting.

 

[bezaleel7]

Well it looks like you have Thunderbolt disabled in BIOS. As for your graphics card, not sure if you downloaded the NVIDIA web drivers and installed them. You should see something similar to my screenshot if you did install web drivers.

I would disable Thunderbolt USB support and just leave Thunderbolt enabled. I just turned my Apollo Twin on and you can see that it connected after restarting.

@beelzebozo
Hey man thanks again for taking out the time to reply to my post. I checked and doubled checked the items you have in your video and what you just sent in the reply.

It seems no matter what i do the nvidia web drivers will not stay activated. I turn it on then restart the computer, once im back in mac os there still off. Here are some screen shots.

As far as the thunderbolt connection. When ever i activate thunderbolt support i can no longer boot into mac os sierra. I get errors. i attached photos of each one.

I spoke to a asus tech and they said i can try to flash the bios back to the older version of the bios which would be version 1992 . I am hoping this will allow the XHCI hand off to be available again i am thinking thats why i cant get the graphics drivers to be reconized again. Im not sure.

I am really stuck with this thunder bolt issue. Please let me know what you think i should do.
oh and now my eithernet is not working anymore. lol.

 

[bezaleel7]

Hey beelzebozo thanks for all your efforts. I was able to get the system back to normal and get the apollo twin to work. The solution was to use a thunderbolt EX 2 card i had. That did the trick along with your post.

 

[picoweb]

Hey beelzebozo.

oh man thank you so much! That worked. my mac os was able to start.

I went out and picked up a hard drive and windows 10. As your video suggested. I installed windows 10, i also installed the thunderboltex 3 drivers that came with the supplied CD. i restarted the computer and booted into sierra after make what ever changes i could in the bios. keep in mind the 3504 bios firm ware is different from your video. The Apollo Twin is still not being reconized by mac OS so im not sure if the thunderbolt card is even activated.

Now i have a new issue. My GTX 1060 card is no longer being reconized. It worked fine before the bios update but now it does not show up in the OS.

I am attaching screen shots to show you what i have going on. Any futher assistance would be greatly appreciated!.

IS MY PROBLEM WHEN I HAVE UPGRADE THE LATEST BIOS... THE GRAPHICS CARD NOT START

 

[Gordo74]

Hey team - just picked up my ThunderboltEX - 3 card and dropped it into a new build that's almost done - ASUS Z170 - Pro running latest Sierra. I've had some success already with the ThunderboltEX II - Dual card in my X99 build, so thought this would be a snap. LOL Guess again...

When I activate TB in the Z170-Pro bios, WOW...there are TONS more options now! And nowhere to be found is the setting that provides the "Legacy" option from the drop-down list. I'm not having much luck right off the bat. Things I've done:

1. Prepped the card by booting into Win10 and installing all the drivers. BTW, it's working like a champ in Windows, and sees my Belkin TB2 docking station connected to it (using Apple TB3 > TB2 adapter), including a USB3 flash drive plugged into it, and it recognizes the Belkin's USB audio codec in the Audio control panel, etc.
2. Replaced OsxAptioFix2Drv.efi with OsxAptioFix2Drv-free2000.efi in Clover EFI
3. Changed the slot speed from Auto to 4X in BIOS.
4. I've tried all 4 of the Security Level options: No Security (is this "Legacy?"), User Authentication, Secure Connect, and Display Port Only. Just curious on how these new options map to the older menu...?

No Security option is the only one that doesn't give me the dreaded "Couldn't allocate runtime area" - the rest stop me cold, and that's even with OsxAptioFix2Drv-free2000.efi. Here are some shots of what the latest BIOS > Advanced > Thunderbolt menu for my board looks like:
View attachment 235985 View attachment 235986
View attachment 235987 View attachment 235988

Thanks for any suggestions you might have to get me over the hump on this one!
--BoomR

Howdy all,

My specs are exactly the same as BoomR's - as well as my settings. I have the expanded set of options like BoomR does as well. Set 4X, set PCIX16_3, SB PCI Slot, No Security. Set cache size to 128 as well based on other feedback in this thread.

Have zero issues booting to OSX. However, thunderbolt testing has been an issue. Testing using an Apple Thunderbolt 3 --> 2 adapter with an Apple Thunderbolt 2 --> Ethernet adapter. Works perfectly under Windows 10, but nothing under OSX. Also used the Startech 3--> 2 adapter with same results.

Any ideas?

 

[Gordo74]

Bump

 

[beelzebozo]

Howdy all,

My specs are exactly the same as BoomR's - as well as my settings. I have the expanded set of options like BoomR does as well. Set 4X, set PCIX16_3, SB PCI Slot, No Security. Set cache size to 128 as well based on other feedback in this thread.

Have zero issues booting to OSX. However, thunderbolt testing has been an issue. Testing using an Apple Thunderbolt 3 --> 2 adapter with an Apple Thunderbolt 2 --> Ethernet adapter. Works perfectly under Windows 10, but nothing under OSX. Also used the Startech 3--> 2 adapter with same results.

Any ideas?

Ethernet? Why?

 

[Gordo74]

Just as a test device - nothing more. Have an Apollo TB2 interface coming this week and wanted a way to test beforehand.

Works in Windows fine.

 

[Gordo74]

Stroke of luck this morning.

Tested CPU-NB and moved the card to Slot 2. That didn't work.

But setting BIOS back to SB and Slot 3, with 32meg cache size, using StarTech TB3 --> TB2 Adapter, then Apple TB2 --> Ethernet, an additional Ethernet showed up in Windows. I hard shut down, connected OSX drive, and boom. Showed up Ethernet fine in OSX as well.

However, on the next reboot, no dice. No longer is connected.

This is infuriating to say the least.

 

[Gordo74]

Further update: After reboot in OSX - link light does not even show. Rebooted to Windows. Nothing. Uninstalled drivers, reinstalled drivers, changed slot again. Got link light back, but no connection.