[SUCCESS] Gigabyte Designare Z390 (Thunderbolt 3) + i7-9700K + AMD RX 580

[gabevf]

Please remind me:

• Are you using a Thunderbolt add-in-card such as GC-Titan Ridge?
• What Thunderbolt device(s) are you using?
• When you say "drops connection often", what do you mean?

• I'm using the on-board Alpine Ridge JHL6540 controller
• Connected to OWC TB3 Dock
• after 5-10 minutes of using any of the connected devices (I currently have 5 USB2 devices connected to it) the connection to the OWC dock drops, and no longer shows up in System Information. The controller also disappears.

Oddly, during one of these "drops" I've seen the controller show up in the "Thunderbolt" section of System Information, even though I don't have a flashed chip. I thought that was only possible with the custom hardware flashing with a RaspberryPi?

Questions about SSDT-TbtOnPCH-Designare-X299-EX.aml

• Is it OS-specific? I'm currently running on 10.13.6 because I need Nvidia GPUs..
• Is it meant to operate in conjunction with the following ACPI patches?
  • RP05:_INI to RP05:XINI
  • _E23 to XE23

Without the above ACPI patches, the controller doesn't show up in the PCI section of System Information, though it does seem to be working (still need to test for dropping)

 

[CaseySJ]

@CaseySJ

I just wanted to drop a message here to say thank you - so, so very much. This thread is an actual goldmine. I just discovered it on my renewed search to improve the thunderbolt on my GA-z170x-UD5 TH. Little did I know you'd put together a guide in these pages for that very board and I now have fully native thunderbolt 3, something I've only dreamed of for years. I really can't overstate how delighted I am about this, thank you so much.

I have to note btw - the discoveries on this thread are pretty under-documented elsewhere online. I very nearly never discovered the page regarding my board for example. Are there any plans to transcribe the contents of this thread to an easily searchable and indexable website? If not - would you be interested in such a thing? I could try to put something together, of course crediting all involved in full.

D

EDIT: Quick question - Do I need to do the hackinDROM thing on this board? I've already done everything in your guide here - https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...700k-amd-rx-580.267551/page-2102#post-2122559
As far as I can tell everything works absolutely perfectly. I'm getting the correct reading on port 5 too. But i tried uploading the SSDT for this board to the hackinDROM thing, which then gave me a massive SSDT with blank values and i got scared and closed the tab.

Hello @passmore,

Welcome to the forum and glad you found us (somehow)! I've added a link to that guide in the Quick Reference spoiler in Post 1.

It is recommended to "do the HackinDROM thing" in order to create a custom Thunderbolt DROM. Every DROM contains a unique ID (UID) that acts somewhat like an Ethernet MAC address to ensure that no two devices have the same address. In a home environment, a custom DROM is not strictly necessary, but still worth doing.

If you're already using a Thunderbolt SSDT and you're seeing UPSB, DSB0, NHI0, DSB2, etc. in your Thunderbolt device tree (IORegistryExplorer) then you're in good shape.

As for ways to make this thread more easily searchable and indexable, there is a good Search function at the very top right of the page. What ideas did you have in mind?

 

[CaseySJ]

• I'm using the on-board Alpine Ridge JHL6540 controller
• Connected to OWC TB3 Dock
• after 5-10 minutes of using any of the connected devices (I currently have 5 USB2 devices connected to it) the connection to the OWC dock drops, and no longer shows up in System Information. The controller also disappears.

Oddly, during one of these "drops" I've seen the controller show up in the "Thunderbolt" section of System Information, even though I don't have a flashed chip. I thought that was only possible with the custom hardware flashing with a RaspberryPi?

I see. The OWC TB3 Dock will work with or without Thunderbolt Bus.

Questions about SSDT-TbtOnPCH-Designare-X299-EX.aml

• Is it OS-specific? I'm currently running on 10.13.6 because I need Nvidia GPUs..
• Is it meant to operate in conjunction with the following ACPI patches?
  • RP05:_INI to RP05:XINI
  • _E23 to XE23

Without the above ACPI patches, the controller doesn't show up in the PCI section of System Information, though it does seem to be working (still need to test for dropping)

The SSDT is not OS-specific. The SSDT does require both of those patches (_INI to XINI and _E23 to XE23). It's perfectly okay NOT to use the SSDT because activating Thunderbolt Bus is not necessary for most devices.

Have you tried using the standard Thunderbolt hot plug SSDT that enables hot plug capability, but does not activate Thunderbolt Bus?

 

[qthegaijin]

It sucks being so close and give up for a lack of the driver...nearly 3k euros for an interface half developed. I had an rme interface, I bought the Antelope to step up my converters. I tried plugging it in my 2017 iMac and as guess what? It works perfectly. What a shame.

Sadly this is still the case and probably will always be unless there is a breakthrough on the hackintosh side. Seeing as how the rumored "working with everything" card that was toted about on Macrumors has so far been nonexistent, us Antelope folks are stuck using USB. The USB 2 and 3 interfaces run great, TB2 and 3 just don't at all on hackintosh.

I spent 6+ months with antelope support and they seemed to want to avoid ever getting me in contact with a developer. This was both for the TB3 on hackintosh and other issues I had on real macs. Really shoddy customer service when it comes to an actual software tech problem. If you follow their social media at all, you'll have seen that 2 of their main PR people quit and that their employees were prettymuch stopped from posting on forums/facebook. The devs used to reply to comments and then all of a sudden it was only their main PR guy. Now its not even an Antelope employee fielding most of the requests on their own user pages. SMH

 

[passmore]

Hello @passmore,

Welcome to the forum and glad you found us (somehow)! I've added a link to that guide in the Quick Reference spoiler in Post 1.

View attachment 511974

It is recommended to "do the HackinDROM thing" in order to create a custom Thunderbolt DROM. Every DROM contains a unique ID (UID) that acts somewhat like an Ethernet MAC address to ensure that no two devices have the same address. In a home environment, a custom DROM is not strictly necessary, but still worth doing.

If you're already using a Thunderbolt SSDT and you're seeing UPSB, DSB0, NHI0, DSB2, etc. in your Thunderbolt device tree (IORegistryExplorer) then you're in good shape.

As for ways to make this thread more easily searchable and indexable, there is a good Search function at the very top right of the page. What ideas did you have in mind?

Hey Casey,

Thanks for the quick response there. I'm afraid it seems like I spoke too soon. The reality is that since following the steps in the guide, sometimes I boot that machine and have full thunderbolt with Bus and local node, sometimes it loads only in PCI, and sometimes thunderbolt doesn't work at all. It seems to be unrelated to anything I do in config.

Here's my OC>ACPI

And here's the config

I've flashed the custom bios you provided for this board and enabled the GPIO3 Force Power and ACPI Removal Object Support settings. I also tried setting 'TableSignature' to DSDT and also SSDT on the ACPI patches. Also tried an NVRAM reset.

I can provide IORegistry, but it changes depending on whether thunderbolt decides to work fully, partially or not at all on each particular bootup. Do you think the fact that I have pcie cards in the machine could be causing the issue? I have a firewire card and a UAD card in there.

EDIT: Here's what it looks like when the bus is working, looks like DSB1 & 2 & 4 are not in the tree.

EDIT 2: in spite of it being under DSB1, my thunderbolt focusrite interface shows up under thunderbolt in profiler (when it decides to work)

Is flashing the thunderbolt firmware a possibility on this board? I poured through this thread but couldn't find patched firmware for it and I'm not sure I know where to start with patching it myself. I do however have a flasher, so if there is suitable firmware that might be the best route.

Sorry - appreciate you're probably busy so only get back to me if you can!

Regarding publicising the info, i meant we could put together a website dedicated to enabling thunderbolt 3 on hacks with all the info you've discovered.

EDIT 3: I've realised that the DROM thing is already done in the SSDT i'm using which I got from your post on this thread here - https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...erbolt-3-i7-9700k-amd-rx-580.267551/page-2083

EDIT 4: There is less randomness than I originally thought. Basically it seems that everything works perfectly until i try to change port on the back of the machine or cold boot. If i do either of these things, i loose thunderbolt and don't get it back until I
1. Kill AC power to both device and computer
2. Turn on device first, then computer
3. reboot the computer once - thunderbolt works in PCI
4. reboot the computer twice - thunderbolt works in thunderbolt bus.

Not sure if this is the best that can be achieved or if there is something else wrong at my end. I've always had trouble with thunderbolt on this machine if the order of power on is adjusted or the port is switched. If flashing the tbt chip with compatible patched firmware is an option I'm very open to trying that (and accept the risks yadda yadda). Alternatively if you think it's an opencore or SSDT issue I am all ears!

 

[pabloscotty]

Hey great guys. Is anyone here using MIDI over Bluetooth? I've tried with Fenvi T919 and Asus dongle... and it rejects to connect. I have several "real" Macs which are connecting perfectly fine. Yesterday I've even tried connect to CME WIDI - with no success.

I wonder if its even possible now. First time when I bought ASUS dongle it established connection once or twice and from that time I could record many MIDI stuff without a glitch. But now when I click connect - nothing happens.

 

[gabevf]

It's perfectly okay NOT to use the SSDT because activating Thunderbolt Bus is not necessary for most devices.

Wow... I did not know this the OWC dock works without TB hot-plug (USB hot-plug on the dock works though).
This is the same behavior I had with the SSDT-TbtOnPCH-Designare-X299-EX.aml SSDT.

Have you tried using the standard Thunderbolt hot plug SSDT that enables hot plug capability, but does not activate Thunderbolt Bus?

Which one is that? I've tried the 'Gigabyte GC-Alpine' Ridge one from HackinDROM, but that caused a KP during boot

 

[CaseySJ]

Wow... I did not know this the OWC dock works without TB hot-plug (USB hot-plug on the dock works though).
This is the same behavior I had with the SSDT-TbtOnPCH-Designare-X299-EX.aml SSDT.



Which one is that? I've tried the 'Gigabyte GC-Alpine' Ridge one from HackinDROM, but that caused a KP during boot

The one from HackinDROM is the right one, but it needs to be adapted to the PCI root path of your motherboard. If you post SSDT-TbtOnPCH-Designare-X299-EX.aml, I'll modify the HackinDROM version for your motherboard.

 

[CaseySJ]

...

EDIT 4: There is less randomness than I originally thought. Basically it seems that everything works perfectly until i try to change port on the back of the machine or cold boot. If i do either of these things, i loose thunderbolt and don't get it back until I
1. Kill AC power to both device and computer
2. Turn on device first, then computer
3. reboot the computer once - thunderbolt works in PCI
4. reboot the computer twice - thunderbolt works in thunderbolt bus.

Not sure if this is the best that can be achieved or if there is something else wrong at my end. I've always had trouble with thunderbolt on this machine if the order of power on is adjusted or the port is switched. If flashing the tbt chip with compatible patched firmware is an option I'm very open to trying that (and accept the risks yadda yadda). Alternatively if you think it's an opencore or SSDT issue I am all ears!

What you discovered in EDIT 4 is very common. However, the procedure to activate Thunderbolt Bus should be a little simpler, as follows:

1. Boot macOS. Should not matter whether it's a cold boot (from Kill AC Power) or standard power up.
2. Login and then just go to Apple menu and select Restart. This is a warm boot.
3. Log back in. Now Thunderbolt Bus should be okay.

 

[jiffyslot]

It sucks being so close and give up for a lack of the driver...nearly 3k euros for an interface half developed. I had an rme interface, I bought the Antelope to step up my converters. I tried plugging it in my 2017 iMac and as guess what? It works perfectly. What a shame.

I wonder it is –precisely– that prevents the Antelope from working. Is it tied to some sort of AVB over Thunderbolt scheme? It would be interesting to see an emulator (like a kind of Virtual SMC) to patch the crippleware from Antelope and others.