MP 1,1-5,1 testing TB3 AIC with MP 5,1

[PeterHolbrook]

I must have done something wrong. I've tried to install an unmodified version of the Big Sur installer on a Mac Pro 5,1 booted through OC 0.6.3 and with the syntax:

<key>SMBIOS</key>
<dict>
<key>BoardProduct</key>
<string>Mac-7BA5B2D9E42DDD94</string>
<key>FirmwareFeatures</key>
<string>A1QM4A==</string>
<key>FirmwareFeaturesMask</key>
<string>P/8f/w==</string>
</dict>

For some reason, the installer tells me my firmware (144.0.0.0.0 in reality) must be updated. Am I missing something?

EDIT: My bad. A1QM4A== and P/8f/w== should be surrounded by data tags, not string tags.

 

[tofa7a]

<key>SMBIOS</key>
<dict>
<key>BoardProduct</key>
<string>Mac-7BA5B2D9E42DDD94</string>
<key>FirmwareFeatures</key>
<string>A1QM4A==</string>
<key>FirmwareFeaturesMask</key>
<string>P/8f/w==</string>
</dict>

This is my code. You seem to be missing the processor type string.

        <key>SMBIOS</key>
        <dict>
       <key>Comment</key>
       <string>Logic board that is specific to the Mac</string>
            <key>BoardProduct</key>
            <string>Mac-7BA5B2D9E42DDD94</string>
            <key>ProcessorType</key>
            <integer>1281</integer>
            <key>FirmwareFeatures</key>
            <data>A1QM4A==</data>
            <key>FirmwareFeaturesMask</key>
            <data>P/8f/w==</data>
        </dict>

I hope that might help you.

 

[roobarb!]

Final experiment with the Sonnet chassis for now; it would appear that the Titan Ridge 2.0 does correctly identify different cable connections. The cable I have that reaches to where the chassis lives is 20Gb/s, while the one supplied in the box is 40Gb/s, but too short. While I have the thing out for testing I tried the short cable.


All good.

 

[DSM2.Hackintosh]

Are these custom cards still a thing and coming ever?

And is the Alpine Ridge still considered superior to Titan Ridge?

I am the wrong person to ask. I know that they should come but I have nothing more to do with it.
Neither with the development of the firmware nor with the realization of the new cards.

Titan Ridge rocks compared to an Alpine Ridge.

 

[eksu]

Would we be able to use a USB 9 Pin splitter like such to split off the USB from bluetooth to both the TB AIC & a Bluetooth Add In Card?

TGOOD 9pin USB Header Male 1 to 2 Female Extension Splitter Cable Connector Adapter (Male 1 to 2 Female)

Wide Application: Internal 9pin USB Splitter Convert 1 motherboard USB 2.0 male to 2 Females. Ideal for Device Expansion: This USB splitter is perfect for connecting various components such as Corsair commander pro, TP Link PCIE cards, SATA/PCIE SSDs, WiFi cards, cooling fans, and RGB lights in...

www.amazon.com

Is the header for the bluetooth USB on the macOS motherboard some sort of four pin standard I can search for or something custom?

 

[joevt]

Would we be able to use a USB 9 Pin splitter like such to split off the USB from bluetooth to both the TB AIC & a Bluetooth Add In Card?

TGOOD 9pin USB Header Male 1 to 2 Female Extension Splitter Cable Connector Adapter (Male 1 to 2 Female)

Wide Application: Internal 9pin USB Splitter Convert 1 motherboard USB 2.0 male to 2 Females. Ideal for Device Expansion: This USB splitter is perfect for connecting various components such as Corsair commander pro, TP Link PCIE cards, SATA/PCIE SSDs, WiFi cards, cooling fans, and RGB lights in...

www.amazon.com

Is the header for the bluetooth USB on the macOS motherboard some sort of four pin standard I can search for or something custom?

Possibly. that one is a four port usb hub. All power comes from the source, so the other devices need to add up to less than that. I don't think the GC-TITAN RIDGE needs much or any power from there.

 

[bookemdano]

Possibly. that one is a four port usb hub. All power comes from the source, so the other devices need to add up to less than that. I don't think the GC-TITAN RIDGE needs much or any power from there.

Having looked at the reviews, I'm not certain that this is actually a hub or if it's just splitting off extra 5V power connections for running things like fans/case lighting.

I hope I'm wrong though, as the 4-port Nanohub that cdf used in his custom cable has been out of stock since spring.

EDIT: lots of similar devices on Amazon--looks like these are usb hubs. I think they use the GL850G chip (or at least a lot of them do). Lots of terrible reviews but some good ones too.

 

[joevt]

Having looked at the reviews, I'm not certain that this is actually a hub or if it's just splitting off extra 5V power connections for running things like fans/case lighting.

I hope I'm wrong though, as the 4-port Nanohub that cdf used in his custom cable has been out of stock since spring.

EDIT: lots of similar devices on Amazon--looks like these are usb hubs. I think they use the GL850G chip (or at least a lot of them do). Lots of terrible reviews but some good ones too.

I have tried the NZXT and HUBBY7 internal powered USB 2.0 hubs mentioned in this post:

USB 3.x PCIe Cards for Classic Mac Pro

Use your imagination and some google searching to find cables to do what you need or make your own cables. Two USB-A male to 5-pin female cables. Two USB-A male to 5-pin male cables and connect them to the GC-TITAN RIDGE's 9-pin female to 9-pin female cable. One 9-pin female to two USB-A female...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[Technodom]

Hey guys, I need some perspective as I struggle with my Gigabyte Titan Ridge rev 2 PCIe card.

I flashed it successfully with the firmware "TitanRidgeNVM23-E64Fr.bin", jumpered my pins 3 to 5, and got the card to start under Catalina and Mojave. In System Report, the card shows up under Thunderbolt, and USB shows USB3.1.

View attachment 956181

The only USB-C and/or Thunderbolt devices I have on hand are (1) external SSD enclosure with dual SSDs (USB-C), (2) Pegasus2 R4 connected to TB2->TB3 adaptor. I've also tried the card with (3) charging my 16" MBP, which works, (4) connecting my iPhone 11 Pro Max and iPad Pro 12.9" via USB-C. Charging works, but Catalina doesn't detect my devices in Music/Finder. My external SSD lights up, then the power LED goes black. When plugged into my 16" MBP, the light behaviour is similar at the start (solid light on for 2s or so), but it would then flicker green if it works. On my MP5,1, it stays black; no volume mounts.

The funkiest behaviour is reserved for my Pegasus2 R4. At first, after installing the Promise Drivers and Utility, and using Kext Wizard to install the "PromiseSTEX.kext" file, my Catalina refuses to start - black screen after Apple logo. I then reboot into Mojave to "sudo rm" the incriminating kext from my Catalina volume. Prior to attempting the kext install, connecting the RAID box to either USB-C ports 1 or 2 causes my display to black out before my RAID box loads (orange light to blue, disk flashing blue), and then enter an infinite loop of reboot-error.screen.press.key.or.wait-reboot weirdness. After I removed the kext, Catalina strangely recognises the RAID box without any screen blackout, and I see this.

View attachment 956196View attachment 956197

All seems to be good right? NO! No volume is loaded...woe is me.

I'm honestly stuck now. I wonder if it's a problem with my config.plist (but I had used @Amey Rupji guide on Github to the letter). I had merged the contents of the guide's OC EFI zip with my existing OpenCore instance.

Any ideas are welcomed! Anyone who has successfully tweaked his rev 2 card to work; I'd love to get in touch and get pointers.

Hi motochan, did you get a resolution to using your Promise Pegasus2 R4 with the titan ridge card? I've just gone through the same process of adding this card to my system so I could use my R4 and am getting the exact same results as you. If plugged in and I restart my computer goes into a restart loop. If I card the drive after it has started up it appears in the system report okay and is listed correctly but no drive appears or can be mounted. I've been onto Promise support and gone through a process of testing the enclosure without any drives in it and I still get the same results. They now have a full system report and are looking into it.
I have a CalDigit TB3 Dock arriving today and I'm hoping connecting through this dock may help resolve it but this is only hoping. Do let me know if you have solved it.

Anyone else got a Promise Pegasus2 R4 working, connected via the Gigabyte Titan Ridge II card?

Dominic

 

[roobarb!]

Anyone else got a Promise Pegasus2 R4 working, connected via the Gigabyte Titan Ridge II card?

I don't own one of these, but I'm curious about that "PromiseSTEX.kext". Why does that need to be added via Kext Wizard, is it not added by a normal installer from Promise?

From @motochan's description it sounds like there's an issue with that kernel extension. When it's absent your system can start, but there's no driver to load so the DAS is seen on the PCIe bus, but not accessible. Take a look in System Information > PCI and see if it's listed there with no driver installed.

 

[Technodom]

I don't own one of these, but I'm curious about that "PromiseSTEX.kext". Why does that need to be added via Kext Wizard, is it not added by a normal installer from Promise?

From @motochan's description it sounds like there's an issue with that kernel extension. When it's absent your system can start, but there's no driver to load so the DAS is seen on the PCIe bus, but not accessible. Take a look in System Information > PCI and see if it's listed there with no driver installed.

Very interesting... Promise Pegasus2 R4 not mounting.

So, there are two extensions in the system I can see. The Pegasus2R2ICON.kext which says it's there and not loaded until I do a restart (doesn't load from a shutdown and restart). And the second one (as you suggested) PromiseSTEX.kext is not loaded at all. My Titan Ridge II is set up by the guys at Create.pro (Macfinder) and I have an OpenCore 0.6.3 installed with the OpenCore Configurator app on my desktop. Would you know what I need to do to try and load this extension?

Screen grabs of the system info below.

 

[roobarb!]

Would you know what I need to do to try and load this extension?

You could try to force it with:

sudo kextload -b com.promise.driver.stex

or:

sudo kextload /Library/Extensions/PromiseSTEX.kext

Is it supposed to be compatible with... oh, I'm not sure which macOS version you're using... whichever one you have?

 

[Technodom]

You could try to force it with:

sudo kextload -b com.promise.driver.stex

or:

sudo kextload /Library/Extensions/PromiseSTEX.kext

Is it supposed to be compatible with... oh, I'm not sure which macOS version you're using... whichever one you have?

Sadly it didn't work. I'm on Mojave 10.14.6 and yes it is supposed to be compatible - it loads and works fine on my MacBook Pro (late 2013)

I tried loading the kext file using "sudo kextload /Library/Extensions/PromiseSTEX.kext" I can then see it is loaded. If I then connect the drive enclosure it crashes the whole system into a reboot and endless loop. If I connect the drive first and start up without it loaded I can see the drive is connected via the System Report Thunderbolt panel. And I can then load the driver but nothing else happens, I can't mount the drive as before. :-(

 

[roobarb!]

Sadly it didn't work. I'm on Mojave 10.14.6

Website only says 10.10 or later, so in theory I suppose it's compatible. Have you tried it on Windows under Boot Camp?

 

[Technodom]

Website only says 10.10 or later, so in theory I suppose it's compatible. Have you tried it on Windows under Boot Camp?

I don't have Windows setup. Another can of worms possibly. I've just heard back from the Promise support team who took a look at my system and ran tests on the enclosure and drivers they think it's something in the Thunderbolt Card driver.

 

[eksu]

The firmware files are:

1. TitanRidgeMacOSFirmware.bin (feb. 24. 2020)
2. TitanRidgeNVM23-E64Fr.bin (mar. 15. 2020)
3. DESIGNARE-Z390-NVM33-Elias64Fr.bin (mar. 15. 2020)
4. TitanRidgeMacOSFirmware.bin (mar. 16. 2020)
5. TitanRidgeNVM43-Elias64Fr-Mod.bin (mar. 16. 2020)
6. Z390-AORUS-XTREME-NVM33-Elias64Fr.bin (mar. 16. 2020)

Version 1 and 4 are the same - the original DSM2 firmwares.
2, 3, 5, 6 are all patched by Elias64 and CaseySJ from the tonymac hackintosh site (search for thunderbolt DROM micro-guide)

2 is similar to the DSM2 firmware based on firmware NVM23 which was what also worked with the windows warm boot for the titan ridge AIC. This firmware works best of the AIC versions.

5 is a patched version of the later NVM43 firmware that was released on newer titan ridge cards. It is not nearly as functional as the NVM23 release. There is also a patched version of the newest NVM50 firmware for testing but not working as well as others still.

3, 6 are both patched versions of NVM33 taken from the onboard titan ridge controller in a gigabyte designaire motherboard. Having tested all firmwares on my titan ridge AIC this is the best of them all by a long way. Both thunderbolt ports work with hot plug (complex devices that requires macOS to load drivers will still require a warm reboot) and others have reported that the display passthrough works best on this version as well.

Right now I have left my titan ridge card on this patched NVM33 firmware (3 on your list) and would recommend it over the others. USB C drives correctly work and I have no header or power cables plugged into the card either and these didn't for me on NVM23.

Properly configuring the SSDT is extremely important as well, and with a customised DROM added will enable full Thunderbolt network bridge.

I finally got my titan ridge card today + programmer. DSN2's final firmware can be found here. https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...1.2143042/page-37?post=28291766#post-28291766

The other firmwares + newer firmwares can be found here.

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

Yes I can boot from the USB Great! That means something might be wrong with the EFI partition of the internal Mojave SSD. Please mount EFI partition of Mojave SSD. Compress and upload the CLOVER folder. You may remove serial numbers from SMBIOS section of config.plist before compressing and...

www.tonymacx86.com

I am only using this for USB3 + Ultrafine 5K Display right now, so I will probably try the DESIGNARE-Z390-NVM33-Elias64Fr.bin firmware unless I find another recommendation.

 

[eksu]

Well I think it worked in Slot 3 with my custom SSDT; I will be able to test a LG Ultrafine 5K display Sunday, and other than that don't have any other thunderbolt devices to test except maybe could network my Mac Pro to a MacBook Pro.

 

[eksu]

Now that I have my Ultrafine 5K card, I can say I am having a terrible experience with the Titan Ridge add in card on a 4,1-5,1 Mac Pro.

I have gotten video output a couple of times out of dozens of reboots, but only ever in passthrough mode, never with Thunderbolt (brightness control, and such). I usually have to unplug and plug my monitor into thunderbolt cable, then unplug and replug my monitor to mains power to get this to work.

I have gotten the monitor detected over thunderbolt on a second reboot after getting an image through passthorugh, and been able to use the webcam and speakers, but my mouse becomes unresponsive as the monitor seems to be trying to switch over to the other display without ever pulling it off.

I've gone through and tested several of the firmwares for the AIC with and without SSDT (in slot 4 to eliminate any other potential issues), but none have resolved this for me. My next steps of investigation is my Graphics Card (something wrong with my XFX RX 580?), a new thunderbolt cable, or a new Ultrafine monitor. But it works fine plugging into a 2016 13" MacBook Pro and 2018 15" MacBook Pro.

Does anyone have any pointers on how to get it working reliable through booting into Windows with stock firmware? What is the best way to install the drivers for this add in card without a thunderbolt header?

EDIT: Ok, I have reverted to stock firmware and have the drivers loaded in Windows. Through the Thunderbolt Display Center I can "Allow Connections" From the LG Ultrafine 5k and get reliable video output. I rebooted into MacOS and the Display was working right away, unfortunately though no OpenCore boot picker so far, and no brightness control / speakers. Will test more tomorrow. End goal is a monitor I can use standalone in MacOS & Windows, with speakers and brightness control.

 

[joevt]

EDIT: Ok, I have reverted to stock firmware and have the drivers loaded in Windows. Through the Thunderbolt Display Center I can "Allow Connections" From the LG Ultrafine 5k and get reliable video output. I rebooted into MacOS and the Display was working right away, unfortunately though no OpenCore boot picker so far, and no brightness control / speakers. Will test more tomorrow. End goal is a monitor I can use standalone in MacOS & Windows, with speakers and brightness control.

Do you get OpenCore boot picker with normal display? If not, then maybe you need to start there. RefindPlus might be a solution.
No brightness control/speakers means PCIe tunnelling isn't working. If Windows can see the LG UltraFine 5K in the Thunderbolt list of attached devices, then a warm boot into macOS should have Thunderbolt working.

Use https://gist.github.com/joevt/e3cd4ff08aae06279134969c98ca3ab7 to get a list of the PCIe devices.

Do you have Titan Ridge v1 or v2? Show a picture of your jumper?

If you're not using flashed firmware, then USB 3.x should work. Have you tried that?

 

[eksu]

Hi Joevt,

I have spent the day collecting data, let me share with you what I have found.

First off, I am on the v2.00 card. I have a jumper between what I believe are pins "3" and "5" on the Thunderbolt Header, and I did a little testing on the stock firmware but then mostly used "GC-Titan-Ridge-V2.0-Mod-NVM50-CaseySJ.bin" today. For most of the day I did my testing with my card in slot 4 with the commonly shared SSDT, and now I have switched back to slot 3 with my own SSDT, but perhaps there is an error there. I am doing most of my testing without the 75w PCI-E connectors, but I re-attach them when I am done tinkering for the day. Most of my testing was also done in Mojave.

When testing with the v2.00 card yesterday and today, I usually got boot screens on my normal display.

In Mojave & Big Sur, it is necessary for me to unplug my 5K display from power and plug it back in while it is connected to MacOS after a cold boot for it to start giving me output. To my surprise while rebooting to test the weirdness in MacOS, I got for the first time Boot Screens on the 5K display. If I go from a cold boot w/ video output, to warm reboot into Windows, then from Windows I can control the display brightness and use the speakers, so everything is working in that environment, although it's hard to get there without boot screens (which seem transient).

When I get the device connected from a cold boot (only video), and then reboot into MacOS warm from MacOS or Windows, I end up in a state where the camera and speakers work, but I don't get any video on the 5K, and as well my mouse stutters significantly (keyboard input is fine - maybe something wrong with USB polling? It is attached to the back of my Mac Pro on a built in USB 2.0 Port I took a video but it is hard to explain if you can not see the mouse being moved).

I have not yet gotten MacOS to respond to the monitor being connected in this way in warm boot without first getting it discovered before reboot by unplugging the monitor from power and bring it back, so I am not sure if hot plugging is working. I purchased a new thunderbolt cable today to see if there may be any issues there, but unfortunately it exhibited the same behavior, and I think in Windows I have proven the hardware to work, as well as in MacOS on a MacBook Pro.

Attached are my logs from pcitree, from a couple different scenarios, as well as photos of my jumper on my card, and my SSDT. I have IORegistryExplorer and MaciASL and can play around with these if it is something to do with the SSDT.

Thanks for your advice, and let me know if you have any ideas what I could be doing wrong.
EKSU

 

[eksu]

Using my SSDT-TBOLT3-SLOT3-UNIQUE.aml seems to get the RAID card stuck in a "Waiting for Apple RAID Card" state, so it isn't working currently either. 🙁

 

[joevt]

Hi Joevt,

I have spent the day collecting data, let me share with you what I have found.

First off, I am on the v2.00 card. I have a jumper between what I believe are pins "3" and "5" on the Thunderbolt Header, and I did a little testing on the stock firmware but then mostly used "GC-Titan-Ridge-V2.0-Mod-NVM50-CaseySJ.bin" today. For most of the day I did my testing with my card in slot 4 with the commonly shared SSDT, and now I have switched back to slot 3 with my own SSDT, but perhaps there is an error there. I am doing most of my testing without the 75w PCI-E connectors, but I re-attach them when I am done tinkering for the day. Most of my testing was also done in Mojave.

When testing with the v2.00 card yesterday and today, I usually got boot screens on my normal display.

In Mojave & Big Sur, it is necessary for me to unplug my 5K display from power and plug it back in while it is connected to MacOS after a cold boot for it to start giving me output. To my surprise while rebooting to test the weirdness in MacOS, I got for the first time Boot Screens on the 5K display. If I go from a cold boot w/ video output, to warm reboot into Windows, then from Windows I can control the display brightness and use the speakers, so everything is working in that environment, although it's hard to get there without boot screens (which seem transient).

When I get the device connected from a cold boot (only video), and then reboot into MacOS warm from MacOS or Windows, I end up in a state where the camera and speakers work, but I don't get any video on the 5K, and as well my mouse stutters significantly (keyboard input is fine - maybe something wrong with USB polling? It is attached to the back of my Mac Pro on a built in USB 2.0 Port I took a video but it is hard to explain if you can not see the mouse being moved).

I have not yet gotten MacOS to respond to the monitor being connected in this way in warm boot without first getting it discovered before reboot by unplugging the monitor from power and bring it back, so I am not sure if hot plugging is working. I purchased a new thunderbolt cable today to see if there may be any issues there, but unfortunately it exhibited the same behavior, and I think in Windows I have proven the hardware to work, as well as in MacOS on a MacBook Pro.

Attached are my logs from pcitree, from a couple different scenarios, as well as photos of my jumper on my card, and my SSDT. I have IORegistryExplorer and MaciASL and can play around with these if it is something to do with the SSDT.

Thanks for your advice, and let me know if you have any ideas what I could be doing wrong.
EKSU

What I got from your info is the following:

	cold_boot_stock.txt
		no LG
		has USB
		has RAID

	warm_boot_stock.txt
		identical - warm boot from macOS or Windows?

	cold_boot_v50_mod.txt
		no LG
		no USB
		has RAID
	
	warm_but_not_engaged_v50_mod.txt
		no LG
		no USB
		no RAID
	
	big_sur_cold_boot_v50_mod.txt
		has LG
		no USB
		has RAID
	
	warm_boot_v50_mod.txt
		has LG
		no USB
		has RAID
		different bus numbers
	
	warm_boot_with_bootscreen_v50_mod.txt
		has LG
		no USB
		no RAID
	
	warm_boot_after_windows_worked_macos_no_video_stutter_v50_mod.txt
		identical
	
	warm_boot_after_windows_worked_macos_no_video_no_stutter_v50_mod.txt
		has LG
		no USB
		no RAID
		different slot (what slot did this and the previous pcitree dumps use?)

With stock firmware USB Controller exists. With flashed firmware, it doesn't exist. Does it exist when you connect a USB 3.x device? I think the way it works is, it hides itself when it's not in use to save power. To unhide it self would require macOS to reenumerate the unhidden PCIe device.

RAID is always supposed to be in slot 4 (this is the RAID controller from Apple for the MacPro5,1?). You didn't post an ioreg so I couldn't check what the slots were for each of the cases. An unmodified DSDT dump from MaciASL would also be useful.

 

[eksu]

Ok, I can go through more thoroughly and deliberately with certain scenarios if it is desirable for PCIe dumps or anything else needed.

I have found a USB 3.x device (Samsung T6 External SSD) so I can now test that. This is with the stock firmware, which I have found I can easily use in both MacOS & Windows by using my normal monitor for boot screens and plugging in the monitor to power after boot, but unfortunately no Brightness, Speakers, USB 3 Hub or Camera.

Later today I will be able to reflash one of the modified firmwares, and test this same scenario with a USB 3.1 device connected at cold and warm boot. Let me know if you want me to test with the custom DSDT being injected, or I will test without for now and can do with later.

Attached below is pcitree, iorge & maciASL output for stock firmware + USB 3.x device.

 

[joevt]

Ok, I can go through more thoroughly and deliberately with certain scenarios if it is desirable for PCIe dumps or anything else needed.

I have found a USB 3.x device (Samsung T6 External SSD) so I can now test that. This is with the stock firmware, which I have found I can easily use in both MacOS & Windows by using my normal monitor for boot screens and plugging in the monitor to power after boot, but unfortunately no Brightness, Speakers, USB 3 Hub or Camera.

Later today I will be able to reflash one of the modified firmwares, and test this same scenario with a USB 3.1 device connected at cold and warm boot. Let me know if you want me to test with the custom DSDT being injected, or I will test without for now and can do with later.

Attached below is pcitree, iorge & maciASL output for stock firmware + USB 3.x device.

The dsl is incomplete. It doesn't include SSDTs which may show how the slots are defined. I think you need to use MaciASL.app to export a table set so all the tables are included.

The ioreg shows that the USB controller of the Titan Ridge works - the T5 drive is connected to a USB 3 port of the Titan Ridge. I have no problem with USB for Alpine Ridge and Titan Ridge using original firmware and force power jumper connected - hot plug works. I don't do sleep/wake.

I guess some dumps showing how USB works with flashed rom might be interesting. The result will show if the USB controller is unhiding when a device is connected but remains unusable because macOS doesn't re-enumerate it. I wouldn't know how to fix that case or the worse case where nothing happens. Maybe I would try finding a method to make the USB controller not hide - like the command I use in EFI Shell for the Alpine Ridge.

For me, I think I would prefer a solution that doesn't involve firmware flashing - a kext that can use the Thunderbolt 3 add-in cards as is (at least with force power jumper) - then we would have full control and could possibly create a Thunderbolt hub with multiple ports - for example, a Sonnet Echo Express SE III with three add-in cards - 6 Thunderbolt 3 ports (7 including the one from the SE III) with 6 DisplayPort inputs which could drive 3 LG UltraFine 5K displays or 6 LG UltraFine 4K displays from a GPU.

 

[eksu]

I've got some complete dumps now from IOReg & MaciASL, attached.

I flashed my firmware to the same modified v50 as yesterday, and started collecting dumps and tinkering. Once again, with the SSDT enabled, the Apple RAID card no longer works - I wonder if my SSDT.asl is interfering with it because they are on the same PCIE Switch?

Unfortunately, today I could not get video output when rebooting from a cold boot to a warm boot - not on my 5k and not on my primary monitor. After many attempts, I flashed the v33 firmware and also ran into the same issue. I am not sure what is contributing to this - the order of my Displayport cables to my Titan Ridge Card & Secondary Display? The presence of the RAID card? Either way, I was unable to get logs from the warm boot scenario I was in yesterday.

I could enable OpenCore logs and see if that gave me any indication of what monitor OpenCore saw and why.

Perhaps I need to fix my SSDT.aml with the information I have from cold boot, and when the RAID card is working with it enable I will know I haven't mucked anything up?

I like your idea for a software solution - I was thinking it would also be useful to have something in OpenCore as well that automatically reboots if it detects cold boot, since the AIC and also my RAID card both seem not to work without a reboot, so I am always double booting anyways. I am not sure if this is enough to initialize these cards or of this must be done in MacOS -- but booting to Windows (which has no drivers) before going to MacOS is enough to initialize the RAID card so I think it should work.

I am not sure which way to proceed as far as debugging goes from here, maybe you will have some ideas for me?
Thanks,
EKSU