Skylake ASUS ThunderboltEX 3 Testing

[jpg724]

MacOS! All good!

This got me wondering though... there’s got to be some way to hack an extra tb3 port on this... I’m guessing not, but is it possible?

That’s great to hear! Glad it’s all working for you. I’m not sure why installing the driver in Windows first is necessary either, but I guess the software might effect the way the mobo BIOS handles the card in general. And since the ASUS drivers are only available as Windows executables, they would need to be installed in Windows.

I wouldn’t know about hacking another TB3 port, but that would be a cool idea.

 

[jpg724]

Well I was wrong. I assumed since I was getting power to my tb3 device over cable, that it was going. When I booted in to MacOS, Tb was disabled.

I’m back to square one with the error. Nothing I do will allow me to boot into MacOS with Tb enabled

Have you tried replacing OsxAptioFix2Drv.efi altogether with OsxAptioFix2Drv-free2000.efi? I was having spotty issues getting it to boot with TB enabled until I changed out that EFI file.

 

[beelzebozo]

Have you tried replacing OsxAptioFix2Drv.efi altogether with OsxAptioFix2Drv-free2000.efi? I was having spotty issues getting it to boot with TB enabled until I changed out that EFI file.

IIRC, it's either of the two EFI drivers, not both at once.

 

[MiGri]

If someone can look at the BIOS settings I posted, perhaps that would shed some light. I’ll give it one more go with a new bios settings suggestion.

I'll check my settings when I'm back home, if that helps. I got the Asus TBEx3 runnig fine on my Prime z370-A.

 

[beelzebozo]

This is where my system hangs. See attachment.

Note:
1- Currently utilizing osxaptiofix2drv-free200.
2- Error message denotes osxaptiofixdrv. That doesn’t match what driver I am using.
3- thunderbolt is enabled. This happens when Enabled with not Tb device attached, and with a thunderbolt device attached.

See this? https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/solved-osxaptiofix-issue.244206/

 

[MiGri]

This is my BIOS menu for Thunderbolt settings.

A very deep explanation about setting up the Asus TBEx3 is written here: scoll down to E.5

 

[jpg724]

Thanks for posting guys.

I checked out the thread, matched the bios settings, and still no go. Works perfectly in Windows, but I still can’t boot to MacOS with thunderbolt enabled.
.......
Is it time to start from scratch with my EFI? Start from scratch with MacOS?

Not sure of a next step. This is driving me crazy.

I posted my BIOS setting back on page 8 of this thread if you want to try them. If I can get around to it tonight I’ll see if I can upload my EFI folder for people to experiment with.

I get the caution sign maybe 1 out of every 5 boots now. At the caution sign, I press the chassis reboot button and the system normally is able to load OSX on the following attempt.

 

[MiGri]

I get the caution sign maybe 1 out of every 5 boots now.

Booting shouldn't be an issue either... At least I have no problems with booting at all. That said, I'm still on 10.13.2 since I had no time for a whole system back up and messing around with Nvidia's non-working video drivers under 10.13.3. It seems like I will wait even more, since you scare me of screwing up my otherwise working system.

 

[jpg724]

Well now! I am very happy to report that this problem has been officially solved!

I went back through my notes and reviewed some of my initial settings, after I had the hell weekend of getting Tb going in Windows. I decided to make a few changes and found the winning combination.

A) I went back to standard default thunderbolt BIOS settings.

B) in Tb settings, changed no security to user authorization.

C) re-enabled secure boot

D) added slide=0 to boot arguments

All B, C, and D must be used together.

Also hot plugging works. Possibly because I did load the latest firmware earlier this week.

Thanks guys for sticking with me through this. I am relieved. And I can not move on to the last 2 items on the list (Broadcom WiFi randomly stopped working, one internal backup hard drive not showing up, disk utility freezes when my cloned backup drive is connected) all small issues in comparison.

JPG, if you need my notes on NVIDIA web drivers in 10.13.3, let me know. I have 4 monitors working now.

Great to hear you got it working! I’m still on 10.13.2. Hearing of your success tempts me to update to 10.13.3 and also run the firmware update on the TB card.

 

[Heinrich]

Any updates? Did you try out the Gigabyte Alpine Ridge card? Preference between the two?

Very interested.