Thunderbolt on GA-Z77X-UP5 TH - cannot mount MBP in target disk mode

[zee2]

Wow, griffin800, you are the bomb! Thanks so much for sharing your findings. I have, in the meantime, come to the same conclusion: there is a missing piece for non-apple motherboards. If this is actually true, then I think Apple will need to update this. Surely they didn't think of keeping thunderbolt target disk mode fenced away from the rest of the world. I have an older MBP that has a firewire 400 and that guy can get mounted on any windows machine.

I am not giving up, will continue to monitor the issue and get back here.

The main reason for this concern was to determine if the hackintosh can work with thunderbolt hardware such as blackmagic pro video stuff. I will get one in the mail on the 8th or so, and will report here if it works okay regardless of the target disk mode issue.

On the other hand, this specific motherboard will only give you 1 working thunderbolt port. The top one has yet to function with an external screen like the bottom one does.

Thanks so much again for your hard work, you've definitely stepped this up a notch.

 

[griffin800]

It seems that Apple has implemented some type of custom firmware into their Thunderbolt controllers, therefore since your motherboard is not Apple, it is probably the reason why you're having trouble connecting it to a Mac and vice-versa.

Don't know of a work around right now, especially if it's due to firmware.

I am not 100% sure if this statement above speculation or fact... but... I'll hope it is speculation

I Have to assume that since we do not have thunderbolt hot swapping as it should in 10.8.2, then we have not yet realize the full potential of the thunderbolt hardware of this motherboard...

...and therefore... I will still hold out hope that thunderbolt macs in target disk mode will work once they are able to handshake with the OS fully.


Although... let's think about Mac Pro graphics cards for a minute... they are flashed with EFI... and as such, won't function in a regular PC... correct?

People are flashing Mac Pro graphics cards with regular Bios versions from the regulars cards all the time in order to use them fully in a PC...

Perhaps... IF the thunderbolt chip in this motherboard is flash-able... there may be a way to flash it with custom EFI?

haha, now i'm just talking out my backside

Just throwing ideas out there...

IN OTHER NEWS
_____________________________________________________________________

At the moment, I wanted everyone who has read this thread to know that I have installed the thunderbolt to Firewire 800 adapter into one of my thunderbolt ports... and With my mac in target disk mode, I AM ABLE to connect them via firewire 800 for target disk mode.

So...

It's going to have to be my acceptable secondary solution until this get fixed.


I have seen no progress made on thunderbolt hot swap drivers as of yet, anywhere, in months... so... maybe people have given up on that?

I hope not.. but when they get the drivers for hot swap, I will try them and the thunderbolt cable target disk mode again.



IN THE MEANTIME....

If you want to target disk mode a thunderbolt enabled mac to your hackintosh.... save the $50 on the thunderbolt cable, and go with the thunderbolt to firewire adapter.

Turn off "Wake on thunderbolt" in the bios...

and leave the others on defaults (20) (128)

Check out my Screenshots for an Xbench Speed test between my Ga-Z77X-UP5 Th with the FW800 thunderbolt adapter... and my 2011 Macbook Pro

One test is the Samsung 830 256gb SSD, the other is the WD scorpio black 750 (in the superdrive bay slot)

Hopefully, this will help anyone with concerns over speed.

It's not too too bad...

could be better... especially for an ssd.


You can see how the FW800 adapter is picked up by the system profiler... as a firewire bus... secondary to the internal FW400 bus port on the motherboard.

O/P - I'm glad I could be helpful to you.. let's keep trying things and reporting back

Anyone else have any ideas?

Thanks to all for reading!

 

[griffin800]

That last attachment was too large and downsized. So i Split them up for easier reading.

Also, I confirmed that i can reboot the machine with everything connected and the FW800 and the Target disk mode show up on the desktop again on a reboot. Very handy... Now just wish it had the speed of thunderbolt

 

[griffin800]

ONE MORE THING...

just for kicks, I tried target disk mode IN WINDOWS 7, via the Thunderbolt to Firewire 800 adapter port plugged into the motherboard, and the firewire port on my macbook pro in target disk mode..

It WORKS..

the adapter was detected immediately on start up as an "LSI 1394 OHCI Compliant Host Controller"

as well as a "PCI standard PCI-to-PCI Bridge"


When i plugged in the macbook pro to the adapter, it was detected immediately as "SBP2 Compliant IEEE 1394 Device"

In My computer, Via MacDrive 8.0.5... i was able to see the storage drive I have in the secondary hard drive bay... but NOT the main hard drive, the solid state, in the Primary macbook hard drive bay...


I wonder if the main drive not showing up is if of any importance or if it's a fluke...

I tried unhooking and rehooking the cable... no luck.

Haven't tried a reboot yet, was too excited this worked in win7...

not sure why.

I guess it's cool to have FW800 in windows 7 for only the $29 adapter... if you need it anyways

For more about Thunderbolt Support in Windows Through apple (Bootcamp drivers) See these links...

very interesting information here about needing to reboot in bootcamp to detect a thunderbolt device...

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Appl...-Behavior-in-Windows-7-Boot-Camp-208861.shtml

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5219?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US#target

 

[griffin800]

OK...

Been doing some research... considering people are wondering about the thunderbolt ports and firmware...

The GA-Z77X-UP5 TH board uses an "Intel DSL3510L" Controller chip for the thunderbolt ports...

as seen here on gigabytes blueprint of the motherboard design:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/picture/?src=/images/mainboards/gigabyte-ga-z77x-up4-up5-th/layout1.png


This controller chip is used on the 2012 Macbook Air 13 inch model!

As seen here on step 16 of the iFixit teardown:

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Air+13-Inch+Mid+2012+Teardown/9457/2


AND it is also in the iMac 2012 model, as seen here on step 23:

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iMac+Intel+21.5-Inch+EMC+2544+Teardown/11936/3

Aaand the Macbook Pro with Retina, as seen on step 15:

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+Retina+Display+Mid+2012+Teardown/9462/2

According to this page on tom's hardware, which compares multiple thunderbolt controller chips, and their capabilities... this chip is known as the "Cactus Ridge 4C"

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/thunderbolt-performance-z77a-gd80,3205-3.html



Interestingly enough, the different capabilities of the thunderbolt chips and how many displays they can run, is evident in the apple product line up, as shown here on apple's own info site, article 14:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5219?viewlocale=en_US


SO...

Now...

we KNOW for sure that Apple is using this same exact thunderbolt controller in the 2012 Macbook Air 13" model and iMac 21.5" model...

If there is ever a firmware update for that model... we may be able to take a stab at modifying that firmware for our purposes?

OR... we may be able to find some soft are drivers for it somewhere in the OS itself in order for the OS to fully recognize the DSL3510L chip...

Especially if both chips are using the same firmware... being that they're intel chips... maybe i'm completely wrong and they don't even have firmware of their own...

Who knows...

greater minds than mine should revisit this... not just for target disk mode... but for full hot swappable thunderbolt capabilities...

Anyone want to look in this EFI update and see if there is any thunderbolt firmware lurking around?

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1618

Maybe this firmware for the 2012 Macbook Pro is for the DSL3510L chip as well... I wonder If the flash utility would work... do i want to risk trying it out?

Thunderbolt Firmware Update v1.1

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1612

EDIT...

apparently, the mid 2012 macbook pro doesn't use the same DSL3510L chip, at least, it's not visible on the motherboard during the teardown

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+Unibody+Mid+2012+Teardown/9515/2

The chip names "Intel L206IA58" appears to be what controls the thunderbolt port in the mid 2012 models... 13" and 15" from what i can find.

Interestingly enough, this chip isn't described anywhere on the internet... that i can find either. If i had to guess... think this chip is some sort of solution for getting the nvidia onboard graphics to display out via the thunderbolt port... perhaps an early attempt at achieving this and so it's not used in the other models?

the question is, why it isn't listed as a controller chip on toms hardware... hmm...

oh well.

I'm going to look into finding out how the 3 macs that i listed above that DO have the same DSL3510L chip recognize the chip... perhaps it's a device ID? perhaps a simple kext and injector method could get it to work?

I attached a screenshot of the system profiler screen for my macbook pro 2011 model. Perhaps if we saw this screen on a 2012 imac or macbook air retina or macbook pro retina... we could get a better idea about an approach...

wether it is truly firmware related... or... if it's possible to fix with kext...

-Gavin

 

[griffin800]

For anyone who wants to know who you're getting all this info from...

I'm a network operations analyst for a major media corporation in the US. (Second largest newspaper company in america)

I work in a data center providing media content for our outlets, and clients, throughout the world...

I know a thing or two about code but i'm more educated in hardware.

Perhaps I need to find someone who's interested in fixing the hot swap / thunderbolt ID issue and see if it fixes the Target disk mode issue...

or.. i guess i have a lot of reading to do

Here's a link for thunderbolt developers:

http://developer.apple.com/library/...al/ThunderboltDevGuide/Basics01/Basics01.html

 

[griffin800]

http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?81695-Magma-ExpressBox-3T/page5

Halfway down the page, someone shows a screenshot of the 2012 macbook pro with retina thunderbolt screen in system profiler...

... interesting

 

[EDGERIDER]

Hi guys !

just to let you know :

a LaCie thunderbolt to esata hub work if you boot with a esata drive attached ( i know i can just plug it to the esata port of the MoBo )
but the Promise pegasus R6 just don't work in any way....

the interesting thing is that it is recognized as an " unknown AHCI controller" so i gess that as the Mobo just see it as a kind of PCIe to eSATA adapter on the pci lane of the MoBo...even better it see the port multiplier of my sarotech enclosure....

interestingly i can do daisy chain of my mini-display port thru the LaCie adapter so the thunderbolt port on the Mother board feeds PCIe lanes
& display port signal like it should.

i dont want to play too much with those drive as i have critical data on it and i dont want to fry them....

but

it might just be that there is a kind of proprietary firmware somwhere in the APPLE mobo efi rom equipped with Intel DSL3510L....

maybe if it is a mother board efi thing, gigabyte should fix it pretty soon as they know that most of the people buying this board is to built hackintosh.

but it could also be a kext that is driving the chipset.

also my internal chipset for sata 6G (the grey one on the mobo) are not all recognized : it sees the 2 Marvell 88SE9172 controller but it list the 4 other one as an "Unkonwn AHCI Standard Controller" i'd like to make them be actually recognized properly........

does anyone have the Kext for fixing those? they run fine apparently and they are stated as 6G negociated link but i can hardly go over 300 mb/ in raid 0 with two intel 520 SSD ( who are correctly recognized)

 

[griffin800]

Hi guys !

just to let you know :

a LaCie thunderbolt to esata hub work if you boot with a esata drive attached ( i know i can just plug it to the esata port of the MoBo )
but the Promise pegasus R6 just don't work in any way....

the interesting thing is that it is recognized as an " unknown AHCI controller" so i gess that as the Mobo just see it as a kind of PCIe to eSATA adapter on the pci lane of the MoBo...even better it see the port multiplier of my sarotech enclosure....

interestingly i can do daisy chain of my mini-display port thru the LaCie adapter so the thunderbolt port on the Mother board feeds PCIe lanes
& display port signal like it should.

i dont want to play too much with those drive as i have critical data on it and i dont want to fry them....

but

it might just be that there is a kind of proprietary firmware somwhere in the APPLE mobo efi rom equipped with Intel DSL3510L....

maybe if it is a mother board efi thing, gigabyte should fix it pretty soon as they know that most of the people buying this board is to built hackintosh.

but it could also be a kext that is driving the chipset.

also my internal chipset for sata 6G (the grey one on the mobo) are not all recognized : it sees the 2 Marvell 88SE9172 controller but it list the 4 other one as an "Unkonwn AHCI Standard Controller" i'd like to make them be actually recognized properly........

does anyone have the Kext for fixing those? they run fine apparently and they are stated as 6G negociated link but i can hardly go over 300 mb/ in raid 0 with two intel 520 SSD ( who are correctly recognized)

Thanks for your report about the Lacie and the Pegasus. Both are great devices i wish i could afford myself

I thought i read somewhere that the pegasus was working?

Try in bios to disable "wake on thunderbolt"... this solved some freezing issues i had in the OS when attaching my macbook pro in target disk mode.


Also... do you have a macbook pro to test out a daisy chain... going from the Gigabyte motherboard thunderbolt port, to the lacie, then, to the macbook pro in target disk mode? that's something I was hoping to try... to see if a device in the middle of the chain might get the thunderbolt target disk mode to properly mount the drives on the desktop.

Anyways...

for the issue with the "unknown AHCI controller"... as far as i know, this was just a cosmetic issue. It actually has full functionality.

Please let me know if you can help with the thunderbolt target disk mode issue

 

[EDGERIDER]

yes I have a MacBook pro Core I7 Quad with Thunderbolt !
I haven't tried to link it in target mode. i'm going to try this right now !
i'm also going to try with the Mac mini as well.... and of course daisy chaining.
thanks for the tip !
I just wish to have the Pegasus working with my Hackintosh as it is super fast : +/- 800 mb/s

one other strange thing =

to day i have tried a Delock Compact Flash to Sata adapter, it works good if I plug it thru a usb adapter ( a 2,5" disk enclosure) but i cant see it in sata or esata....

i think there is a couple of "bridges" that are not yet open on osx....

So far the daisy chaining of the mini display port to vga adapter, after the La Cie esata Hub works just good. sometime ( a couple of time) after the boot i have to unplug the minidisplayport and replug it to trigger the dual display mode...