- Joined
- Jul 24, 2013
- Messages
- 28
- Motherboard
- GA-Z87X-UD5-TH
- CPU
- i7-4770K
- Graphics
- EVGA GTX 760 SC
- Mac
- Classic Mac
- Mobile Phone
I've been trying to get the Thunderbolt ports working on my Z87X-UD5-TH for about a week and I think I've come across something worth sharing.
A few months ago, I built a Hackintosh using the Z77X-UP4-TH and it has fully functioning TB ports (no hot swap as usual). What was interesting though, is that OSX didn't recognize those ports as Thunderbolt. Instead, it seemed that they showed up as "dumb" PCIE bridges only. Storage devices would show up as internal. I could still daisy chain devices and such, I even set up a RAID 1 through chaining TB cables. Upon further digging, I still couldn't find Thunderbolt showing up anywhere in OSX when using TB devices. Kext Wizard showed no Thunderbolt kexts loaded and the IO device tree showed the connection as PCIE bridges - no mention of TB.
When I went to set up my Z87X-UD5-TH (running 10.8.5), I could not get Thunderbolt working despite my many attempts. Changed BIOS settings, installed different kexts, etc. What I did notice is that when TB devices were connected, although they wouldn't mount, 2 Thunderbolt kexts would load and the device tree listed a Thunderbolt connection (although no device at the end of the connection).
I started comparing my UP4 & UD5 systems to see if I could find why one system wasn't recognizing TB but the ports were working and the other was recognizing TB but the ports were useless pieces of crap. By process of elimination, I ended up coming to the fact that the UP4 system had a Windows 7 drive installed and the UD5 did not. That wouldn't ****in' matter would it? Oh but I think it does...
In my semi delirious state of sheer anger towards the inanimate object before me, I decided to give it a whirl. I found an old ass HDD (5400rpm SATA 2), placed it in my case's drive bay, and installed Windows 7 on it. When I booted into Windows, with a Seagate Thunderbolt Drive attached, the OS recognized a series of PCIE bridges. I restarted into OSX and la dee freakin' da, there was my drive sitting on the desktop. I restarted a couple times straight into OSX and the TB drive still mounted. I copied some files over to the drive in order to test functionality and it worked.
When I looked at the IO device tree on my UD5, it showed the Thunderbolt drive in the same manner as my UP4. No mention of TB - just PCIE bridges. Success!
Is there is anyone out there that has Thunderbolt working on any board that only has Mac OSX installed (i.e. no other OS installation on any drive - ever)? If not, then this may be the reason some people are able to obtain TB functionality and others are not. Even with similar set ups. I'll do my best to answer questions and update this thread as I find out more.
NOTE: I did all this testing late last night and got pretty tired. Therefore, I don't want to say this is a cure all - I'll need to experiment more with its functionality and there may be further developments. Right now, it's just a theory.
A few months ago, I built a Hackintosh using the Z77X-UP4-TH and it has fully functioning TB ports (no hot swap as usual). What was interesting though, is that OSX didn't recognize those ports as Thunderbolt. Instead, it seemed that they showed up as "dumb" PCIE bridges only. Storage devices would show up as internal. I could still daisy chain devices and such, I even set up a RAID 1 through chaining TB cables. Upon further digging, I still couldn't find Thunderbolt showing up anywhere in OSX when using TB devices. Kext Wizard showed no Thunderbolt kexts loaded and the IO device tree showed the connection as PCIE bridges - no mention of TB.
When I went to set up my Z87X-UD5-TH (running 10.8.5), I could not get Thunderbolt working despite my many attempts. Changed BIOS settings, installed different kexts, etc. What I did notice is that when TB devices were connected, although they wouldn't mount, 2 Thunderbolt kexts would load and the device tree listed a Thunderbolt connection (although no device at the end of the connection).
I started comparing my UP4 & UD5 systems to see if I could find why one system wasn't recognizing TB but the ports were working and the other was recognizing TB but the ports were useless pieces of crap. By process of elimination, I ended up coming to the fact that the UP4 system had a Windows 7 drive installed and the UD5 did not. That wouldn't ****in' matter would it? Oh but I think it does...
In my semi delirious state of sheer anger towards the inanimate object before me, I decided to give it a whirl. I found an old ass HDD (5400rpm SATA 2), placed it in my case's drive bay, and installed Windows 7 on it. When I booted into Windows, with a Seagate Thunderbolt Drive attached, the OS recognized a series of PCIE bridges. I restarted into OSX and la dee freakin' da, there was my drive sitting on the desktop. I restarted a couple times straight into OSX and the TB drive still mounted. I copied some files over to the drive in order to test functionality and it worked.
When I looked at the IO device tree on my UD5, it showed the Thunderbolt drive in the same manner as my UP4. No mention of TB - just PCIE bridges. Success!
Is there is anyone out there that has Thunderbolt working on any board that only has Mac OSX installed (i.e. no other OS installation on any drive - ever)? If not, then this may be the reason some people are able to obtain TB functionality and others are not. Even with similar set ups. I'll do my best to answer questions and update this thread as I find out more.
NOTE: I did all this testing late last night and got pretty tired. Therefore, I don't want to say this is a cure all - I'll need to experiment more with its functionality and there may be further developments. Right now, it's just a theory.