- Joined
- Jul 13, 2011
- Messages
- 112
- Motherboard
- Gigabyte B550 Vision D
- CPU
- Ryzen 9 5900X
- Graphics
- RX 6900 XT
- Mac
- Classic Mac
- Mobile Phone
One of the reasons I bought the Gigabyte Z170MX Gaming 5-board was for the fact that the board had a THB_C header, for the Thunderbolt add-on card.
On the site for the card it only said that it was compatible with the X99 boards, but the manual for my Z170 let me believe it ought to work, so I gave it a try.
And well, it didn't. The Displayport to Mini-displayport for my Apple Cinema Display (the one with the black bezel but without Thunderbolt) worked, so the card seemed to be working in some way. But the Thunderbolt sub-menu never showed up in the BIOS, after trying repeatedly to install drivers in Windows.
I had the suspicion that maybe the Thunderbolt menu wasn't enabled in the BIOS, since this use case of using an "old" TB2 card originally made for the X99 boards on the Z170, might be pretty far out.
After talking to Gigabyte's support team, they talked to their hardware team, who made me a custom version of the F4 BIOS. I updated and the Thunderbolt-meniumy Thunderbolt drive appeared in Windows 10, and then with some tinkering in the ThunderboltBIOS (Boot enabled, Cache set to 128 and Security to Legacy), it now works in OS X.
The only problem I have encountered is that I get that darned BIOS error "Boot failure detected". Now I might have missed something when my BIOS was flashed (I doubt it), but something related to having the Lacie Thunderbolt drive on through a reboot, seems to mess up the BIOS. I hope I can iron it out.
BUT, for anyone with a Gigabyte Z170 board with the THB_C header on, you can safely buy the Thunderbolt card from Gigabyte, if you can find it.
EDIT: Of course as the BIOS seems to be a custom version of the F4 bios with a date of 28th of March, and the F4-version on the Gigabyte site still says 10th of March, you might have to wait (or I can send you the file).
On the site for the card it only said that it was compatible with the X99 boards, but the manual for my Z170 let me believe it ought to work, so I gave it a try.
And well, it didn't. The Displayport to Mini-displayport for my Apple Cinema Display (the one with the black bezel but without Thunderbolt) worked, so the card seemed to be working in some way. But the Thunderbolt sub-menu never showed up in the BIOS, after trying repeatedly to install drivers in Windows.
I had the suspicion that maybe the Thunderbolt menu wasn't enabled in the BIOS, since this use case of using an "old" TB2 card originally made for the X99 boards on the Z170, might be pretty far out.
After talking to Gigabyte's support team, they talked to their hardware team, who made me a custom version of the F4 BIOS. I updated and the Thunderbolt-meniumy Thunderbolt drive appeared in Windows 10, and then with some tinkering in the ThunderboltBIOS (Boot enabled, Cache set to 128 and Security to Legacy), it now works in OS X.
The only problem I have encountered is that I get that darned BIOS error "Boot failure detected". Now I might have missed something when my BIOS was flashed (I doubt it), but something related to having the Lacie Thunderbolt drive on through a reboot, seems to mess up the BIOS. I hope I can iron it out.
BUT, for anyone with a Gigabyte Z170 board with the THB_C header on, you can safely buy the Thunderbolt card from Gigabyte, if you can find it.
EDIT: Of course as the BIOS seems to be a custom version of the F4 bios with a date of 28th of March, and the F4-version on the Gigabyte site still says 10th of March, you might have to wait (or I can send you the file).