[Solved] GC-Alpine Ridge Thunderbolt 3 Card

[delmuerte]

I tried this and now I see the ports listed in the Thunderbolt manager, but now I'm also not getting power from there and it's still not recognizing the UAD.

Side note, after updating the BIOS to F7h, the bios is corrupted and downgrades to F6 each time I boot, after a bunch of restarts.

Hi Boom, I have finally figured this out. I made a post to help others, with pics of my BIOS setting:

https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...thunderbolt-3-aic-rev-2-0-high-sierra.246228/

Thanks for your help

Ron

 

[BoomR]

Hi, I've been following this thread for a bit. I have nearly the same setup as you (Aorus Ultra Gaming, Alpine Ridge 2.0 AIC--though my TB device is a UAD Apollo Twin MKII interface) and I still can't even get Windows to recognize it. I've tried your BIOS settings, but no dice. I plugged my phone into the TB3 port just to check and that seems to work fine, though the TB Manager shows no attached devices.

I also noticed that once I plugged in the Alpine Ridge card that my machine seems to hiccup when restarting now and shows that the BIOS was reset every time I check that. BIOS is F7h. Did you run into any of that?

First of all, why do you think plugging your phone into the TB3 port is a good solution to test? To my knowledge, there are no mobile phones that use TB3. USB3.1 does not equal TB3...2 completely different protocols.

By this post & the follow-up post, it sounds like there is an issue with possible corruption in your UEFI/BIOS. My recommendation would be to get a different USB key, re-download the firmware again, and try to update again. My system is completely stable & I don't have problems with mobo reverting back to an older version. My BIOS settings are based on F7h. Until you can resolve your BIOS reset issue & get F7h running without any problems, we can't resolve your TB issues.

 

[BoomR]

I tried this and now I see the ports listed in the Thunderbolt manager, but now I'm also not getting power from there and it's still not recognizing the UAD.

Side note, after updating the BIOS to F7h, the bios is corrupted and downgrades to F6 each time I boot, after a bunch of restarts.

I seem to recall from other threads dealing with TB2 and UAD products, that you may need to adjust some of the memory allocation settings in order to get fully-functional TB for your UAD. You might want to search the forums for UAD Thunderbolt and read up on what other users have done to get TB configured successfully for use with UAD.

 

[delmuerte]

Because the only other device I have to try with that port (i.e., the UAD interface) is not working. Also, like I mentioned, it was getting power at one point for the phone, but wasn't after a particular set of bios modifications. After more fiddling, the phone was getting power, the ports were visible in the TB manager, (does it always show just Port 1, Port 2 or does it ever offer more specific info?) but still the UAD is not showing anywhere.

Tried your suggestion for the bios last night. At Home Depot right now buying a battery, haha.

I'll keep looking for UAD specific posts.

 

[BoomR]

Because the only other device I have to try with that port (i.e., the UAD interface) is not working. Also, like I mentioned, it was getting power at one point for the phone, but wasn't after a particular set of bios modifications. After more fiddling, the phone was getting power, the ports were visible in the TB manager, (does it always show just Port 1, Port 2 or does it ever offer more specific info?) but still the UAD is not showing anywhere.

Tried your suggestion for the bios last night. At Home Depot right now buying a battery, haha.

I'll keep looking for UAD specific posts.

Right - so the TB3 port is actually a "combo" port - depending on what you plug in. When you plugged in your phone, the "handshake" between device & your machine said: USB3. So of course you will get power to your phone. But you cannot use a USB3 device to test TB3 functionality. Apples/oranges. You may need to find another TB3 device (HD, or one of the Apple TB3 adapters) in order to help troubleshoot and to verify that TB3 is working for non-UAD devices. At that point, you can start fiddling with the other settings inside the TB BIOS setting.

 

[delmuerte]

Yeah, I mean that wasn't the crux of what I was saying--I just meant that I wasn't even getting power from it but that was later resolved by changing some other BIOS settings. I don't actually have any other TB3 stuff to test with so I went with the next best option.

I used purpleronnie's settings which seemed to get me a little closer, but something's still a little off. The TB Manager now shows the TB Controller and port 1 and port 2 with no other info. Did you post screenshots of your BIOS settings? Mine are exactly like purpleronnie's, but I changed the "Other PCI Devices" settings you mentioned to Legacy instead of leaving it UEFI.

BTW, replaced battery and the machine seems happier so far.

Edit: Of course it was a bad cable. Works great now!

 

[eddieboy]

For anyone that has been struggling with this issue. I am using the Z270X-Ultra Gaming. It comes with an USB 3-C but in order to use Thunderbolt you must purchase the add on Card. I am using the GC-Alpine Ridge. Make sure to connect it to the 4th PCIE slot which in this board is the last one in the bottom. Also in the Bios Settings under Thunderbolt set your Security settings to none not User Authorization. I activated and update the firmware in windows first. I then fully shut down the computer, I am using the starTech TBT3TBTADAP Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter. Make sure all devices are on before rebooting into OS X. I can confirm it is working in 10.12.6 using an Apollo Twin Audio Interface. After doing this I deleted my windows hard drive because I will not be using windows in this computer all is working great.

Hi itecaudio, I have a z170x-u3d ultra from gigabyte and the GC-Alpine ridge. I did all the updates on windows and it picked it up on there. But when I went to mac it wasn't picking it up. Also on my board it has the on board usb-c thunderbolt and for some reason that picks it up so idk what is it that I'm doing wrong can you plz help, thanks

 

[eddieboy]

Okay, so I have fixed the problem.

Turns out there is a setting in the BIOS under the subheader 'BIOS', towards the bottom of this menu there is an option called 'TBT USB3.1 Force Power' by default it is set to Enabled, I disabled it and everything worked. The Thunderbolt 3 Controller appears when booted into Windows 10 and drives will read.

One weird thing that is still happening though. I can use both ports on the TB3 Card under macOS, plug in two drives, one to each port, reboot as there is no hot swap and they will mount and I can use them no worries. But under Windows, only the top port will actually mount a drive, if I put it in the bottom port it shows up in my Thunderbolt Software Utility but Windows won't actually mount the partition, weird. I'm happy though as I'll only be using TB3 when under macOS and that works so sweet as!

Hi there bradley andrew, I have a ga-z170x-u3d ultra with gc-alpine ridge. I was able to do the updates on windows just fine and it was able to read my TB3 also had my apollo 8 hooked up to it and it worked fine. Also it has a onboard TH3 which also works. But when I switch to OS X it wasn't picking it up but the onboard was working fine with it. Idk if this could be an issue but I read on one of the threads that if you have a graphic card on slot 16 it won't read the lanes idk if thats whats making my TB3 not work or what but I tried everything I can think of and the TB3 is in the last slot PCIe x4. So if you or anyone can help me out with this problem cause I use my hack for music production and need a stable computer. Thanks in advance

 

[bonce]

Does anyone have information as to what each setting actually means in the thunderbolt bios page? I am having no luck getting answers from Gigabyte

 

[Drakoz]

I have a GA z270x Gamming K7
I am in the F9c version of bios and the "thunderbolt" option does not appear
I'm also with the GC Alpine Ridge Connected ...
It's as if my mobo still did not recognize GC Alpine.
Can someone help me?