- Joined
- Jul 20, 2013
- Messages
- 81
- Motherboard
- Gigabyte Z390 Designare
- CPU
- i9-9900K
- Graphics
- RX 590
I love your scientific rigor, it has led to many solutions and insights .Thank you for running these tests. Some questions (for the sake of scientific rigor ):
Not so sure if I was as meticulous as you would have been, but let me try:
- During each test, did you (blindly) press Enter at the (invisible) Clover Boot Menu to boot macOS?
No, I had my HDMI monitor connected to the GPU card during all tests. The Gigabyte bootlogo, Clover Boot Menu, Apple loading screen, and macOS were all displayed on my HDMI monitor. - If so, did the Thunderbolt Display turn on at any time during or after the boot process?
No, the Apple Thunderbolt Display did not turn on or show any sign of life during my tests. - During each test, did you connect a second monitor simultaneously so that Clover Boot Menu appeared on that monitor?
Yes, the HDMI monitor was connected at all times during my tests. - If so, did the Thunderbolt Display turn on at any time during or after macOS was booted? Or only the second monitor was active?
Only the second monitor was active. The Apple display behaved as if no power cord was connected.
My hackintosh is normally configured with iGPU in headless mode, driving a BenQ 4K monitor attached via DP to my GPU card, and the HDMI monitor as a second screen, also to the GPU card. For the tests I've disconnected the 4K monitor and routed that DP-port to thunderbolt via DP-in on the Designare. The HDMI monitor was connected in all tests.
I did Test 1 (headless mode) without rebooting, just hot-plugging the Apple Thunderbolt Display to each TB3 port.
Then switched my config.plist with the iGPU-enabled configuration and rebooted. Then did test 2 (GPU DP to TB3 + iGPU active) hot-plugging TB3 ports. Finally, disconnected the DP-cable and did test 3 (iGPU to TB3) hot-plugging and without rebooting.
Your questions made me realise that rebooting vs hot-plugging could make a difference, so I just completed the same tests again, this time rebooting after each change instead of hot-plugging. The outcome did not change. The Apple Thunderbolt display does not turn on at any time, and none of the other USB-devices (webcam, sound, network, USB ports, Firewire port) become active nor visible in System Report / IOreg / Settings.
At some point I plugged in a USB-stick and USB-mouse to the back of the Apple Display. The mouse's laser would not even light up. Final test I did was to connect the display to my MacBook to validate the display still works, and it does.
Guess it's safe to say and confirm now that the Apple Thunderbolt Display does not work with unpatched Thunderbolt firmware on the Designare.
You can imagine my excitement to try patching the thunderbolt firmware and see the display come to life!