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pizzigri

macrumors newbie
Nov 17, 2022
24
4
rome
Update: GPIO and USB hub module installed and working.


The module provides four internal USB data connections: one for the BT module, two for the GC-TITAN RIDGE, and a spare (pictured above, only the BT connection is used). It also provides GPIO for the GC-TITAN RIDGE (see above on the right). To the best of my knowledge, this is the first active add-on module for interacting with a Thunderbolt card through the THB_C header. The module not only takes care of FORCE_PWR but also detects SLP_S3 to reset one of the PD controllers for proper wake-from-sleep behavior. As a result, my LG UltraFine 5K display no longer stays black when my Mac Pro wakes from sleep!
Fantastic. I’n absolutely interested too! Please let me know how I can obtain one of these. Purchase a built one or kit to assemble thru you, build one from scratch with Gerbers/BOM, or whatever.
 

840quadra

Moderator
Staff member
Feb 1, 2005
9,256
5,969
Twin Cities Minnesota
Yeesh!

Have an offer to receive 2 free thunderbolt monitors and am considering going down this path for my 5,1. Sadly l am absolutely lost in this thread with regards to what version of card to buy, what firmware is best to flash to it, and personally if it is even worth the trouble!

I do quite a bit of small electronics work so the eprom tool and soldering doesn’t scare me, I just am unclear on the best path, and what version of this card I should purchase here and now.

Any tips would be appreciated if someone can point me to posts or suggestions.

I would also like to look into modifying the thread to make it more of a WIKI, if the OP has no real objections to it. I see a few other posts asking for some suggestions, and I hope to help others once I learn.
 

trifero

macrumors 68030
May 21, 2009
2,739
2,597
Yeesh!

Have an offer to receive 2 free thunderbolt monitors and am considering going down this path for my 5,1. Sadly l am absolutely lost in this thread with regards to what version of card to buy, what firmware is best to flash to it, and personally if it is even worth the trouble!

I do quite a bit of small electronics work so the eprom tool and soldering doesn’t scare me, I just am unclear on the best path, and what version of this card I should purchase here and now.

Any tips would be appreciated if someone can point me to posts or suggestions.

I would also like to look into modifying the thread to make it more of a WIKI, if the OP has no real objections to it. I see a few other posts asking for some suggestions, and I hope to help others once I learn.
 

840quadra

Moderator
Staff member
Feb 1, 2005
9,256
5,969
Twin Cities Minnesota
I am really not sure what this is providing me. A link without any context is somewhat useless as it could be regarding anything in that thread.

Are you suggesting the Asus board linked in one of the posts?

If I am going to go down this path at all, I would prefer to add both the display and Thunderbolt support via the Titan ridge 2.0 or newer (??) Method.
 

virtualisoftware

macrumors newbie
Dec 8, 2022
2
0
Hello to all,

I managed to finally get my cMP 4,1 ( Flashed to 5,1 ) to be in a fairly good place, with OpenCore and Monterey working very nicely with the OC boot screen on the non-flashed RX580. I'm still getting the very well known crackling audio issue, which seems to affect the X5550, but I have a couple of X5690 on order, which I hope will fix the problem when they'll arrive.

Last thing to fix is Thunderbolt: I bought a pre-flashed Titan Ridge 2 from a store, which came with an USB stick containing a full EFI/OC installation. However, this was likely made for an older version of OpenCore and likely for an older OS, possibly Mojave, because if use it as it is ( copying the whole content of the USB EFI/OC folders to my actual EFI ), the system doesn't boot anymore.

So, I took JUST the SSDT-TBOLT3.aml in the EFI/ACPI folder, copied it to the actual EFI/ACPI folder created by the OC Legacy Patcher, added the relevant section to the CONFIG.PLIST to enable it, and it works fine, the Thunderbolt card is seen, with speeds reported as 40Gb/s as expected.

I connected to my Focusrite Clarett 4Pre, which is a Thunderbolt 2 audio unit, using the Thunderbolt2->3 adapter from Apple, installed the Focusrite drivers and control software for Monterey, and the audio works fine. The audio still crackles with normal audio apps ( due to the CPU issue ), but I can even fix it in Logic by using a larger audio Buffer: with 512k I get almost zero audio issue, and with 1024k is completely gone, audio is just perfect. Hopefully this should be fixed with the new CPUs.

My ONLY issue, and the reason of this post as a request for help is:

I can't use ANY external SSDs through Thunderbolt! I have two drives, a Samsung X5 and a Kingston NVME mounted in a no-name Thunderbolt enclosure, and none of them seems to work.

They both power up and are both showing as connected in System report, with all sort of info about max speed, firmware version, etc. but they don't show up in Disk Utility, so they can't be mounted.

Both drives, of course, work perfectly fine on my 16 Intel MacBook Pro in Thunderbolt mode.

I also have another cheap NVME enclosure, in USB-C so, if I took out the Kingston drive from the Thunderbolt enclosure and place it in the USB-C enclosure, IT WORKS and mounts correctly, even on the same port that didn't work as Thunderbolt but, of course, since the Thunderbolt external audio card works, Thunderbolt is generally working but, why it doesn't support the SSD drives ?

The only thing that looks suspicious, is that in the PCI section of System Report, it says no driver has been loaded for NVME Express. This might be the reason ? I saw a couple of posts here, reporting the Samsung X5 is not supported but why ? Does the controller chipset matters ?

Do they need extra drivers or configurations ? I have also tried enabling NVME boot support ( even if I'm not trying to boot from them, I boot from an internal SSD in the first SATA slot ) in Open Core, no difference.

Does anybody have any experience of using external SSD through Thunderbolt and not USB-C ?

Thanks for any help,
 

cdf

macrumors 68020
Jul 27, 2012
2,249
2,564
Have an offer to receive 2 free thunderbolt monitors and am considering going down this path for my 5,1. Sadly l am absolutely lost in this thread with regards to what version of card to buy, what firmware is best to flash to it, and personally if it is even worth the trouble!
If you’re up to it, adding Thunderbolt to the Mac Pro 5,1 is a great upgrade. In my opinion, the best choice is still the GC-TITAN RIDGE card (revision 1 or 2). Proper functionality additionally requires
  • flashing the card with a modified-for-Mac firmware (my preference is NVM 23)
  • holding the FORCE_PWR pin high (easily achieved with a jumper)
  • removing the 0Ω resistor on the #WAKE line
  • using an SSDT (loaded with OpenCore)
Many Thunderbolt devices work great with this upgrade, but Thunderbolt displays can be especially tricky. A warm boot is usually required to get the display’s features (brightness controls, speakers, camera, USB ports) to work, and you might have to deal with the display not turning on after booting or waking from sleep (fixed by power cycling the display or by using an add-on module). Despite these annoyances, I really enjoy my LG UltraFine 5K Thunderbolt display. It’s really amazing that it can be connected to a classic Mac Pro!
 

840quadra

Moderator
Staff member
Feb 1, 2005
9,256
5,969
Twin Cities Minnesota
If you’re up to it, adding Thunderbolt to the Mac Pro 5,1 is a great upgrade. In my opinion, the best choice is still the GC-TITAN RIDGE card (revision 1 or 2). Proper functionality additionally requires
  • flashing the card with a modified-for-Mac firmware (my preference is NVM 23)
  • holding the FORCE_PWR pin high (easily achieved with a jumper)
  • removing the 0Ω resistor on the #WAKE line
  • using an SSDT (loaded with OpenCore)
Many Thunderbolt devices work great with this upgrade, but Thunderbolt displays can be especially tricky. A warm boot is usually required to get the display’s features (brightness controls, speakers, camera, USB ports) to work, and you might have to deal with the display not turning on after booting or waking from sleep (fixed by power cycling the display or by using an add-on module). Despite these annoyances, I really enjoy my LG UltraFine 5K Thunderbolt display. It’s really amazing that it can be connected to a classic Mac Pro!
Thanks for the response.

I was having a PM discussion with @tsialex regarding basic first steps on this topic and he suggested pinging you. Been reading a plethora of posts on this and working to make a decision on this subject.

I saw some people using tiny touchscreen monitors to assist with OC boots, and navigating warm boot options as well. I happen to have a small HDMI screen for video production that could work for part of that issue if I go that route.

I will keep an eye open for 2.0 cards. I believe I already have the correct chip programmer as it is something I needed for an RC project I worked on a year or two ago.

Thanks for the tips. I think there is enough data in this thread, and your outline to keep me on the right path!
 
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trifero

macrumors 68030
May 21, 2009
2,739
2,597
Anyone can tell me why Thunderbolt docks don´t work with the Titan Ridge? I have tried a bunch of them. Sorry if this was answered before, I could´t find anything.
 

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pizzigri

macrumors newbie
Nov 17, 2022
24
4
rome
I saw some people using tiny touchscreen monitors to assist with OC boots, and navigating warm boot options as well. I happen to have a small HDMI screen for video production....
that’s interesting, can you point me where I can find more info? All I get is in regards to Hackintoshes, and not “tiny” but actual large touchscreens
 

840quadra

Moderator
Staff member
Feb 1, 2005
9,256
5,969
Twin Cities Minnesota
that’s interesting, can you point me where I can find more info? All I get is in regards to Hackintoshes, and not “tiny” but actual large touchscreens
Sure.


Another option is to simply get a basic HDMI monitor screen that you would use for an SLR camera. I had one that I used for my Blue Iris DVR for a few years until I finally got a decent VNC relay for it.


The nice thing about these larger monitors is you can keep it online and use it for simple applications full screen. For instance I use my current one as an always on iMessage screen.
 
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virtualisoftware

macrumors newbie
Dec 8, 2022
2
0
Hello, as a follow up to my previous post, where I couldn't make external Thunderbolt drivers to work with the TR2, I got a Startech Dual M.2 PEX8M2E2 PCI adapter, so I took out my 2TB Kingston SSD I had in the Thunderbolt enclosure, to the PCI adapter. As a quick reminder, my system is a 4,1 cMP, flashed to 5,1, running Monterey with the latest OC, booting from a SATA SSD in the first internal Sata slot. I'm not particularly interested in booting from NVME (doesn't seem to offer any benefits) or using the TR2 for anything other than driving my external audio interface, and possibly some other stuff using USB-C.

The Titan Ridge has been bought pre-flashed by a vendor in Germany, and it came with a thumb drive with a SSDT-TBOLT3.AML, which seems to be a fairly standard version which was also posted here ( comparing the MD5s ), that requires the card to be in Slot 4. Right now, I using the Titan Ridge ONLY to drive my external audio interface, a Focusrite Clarett, which is TB2, with the Apple TB2-TB3 adapter.

It kind of works, but I have the following issues:

- RX580 in PCI in Slot 1
- Startech PCI in Slot 2
- Empty Slot 3
- Titan Ridge in Slot 4

With this configuration, the system hangs halfway during boot, with the progress bar about 50%. If I boot Verbosely, I see lots of progress logs but, when the hang happens, there's nothing that suggests an error, it just stops any further output and it hangs there forever.

- Startech PCI in Slot 1
- RX580 in PCI in Slot2
- Empty Slot 3
- Titan Ridge in Slot 4

Same as above, hang while booting. Anybody knows if the PEX8M2E2 requires two SSDs to work in the 16X Slots maybe ? I couldn't find any info about this, other than the adapter is supposed to work with 1 or 2 drives.



- RX580 in PCI in Slot 1
- Empty Slot 2
- Startech PCI in Slot3
- Titan Ridge in Slot 4

With this configuration, the Titan Ridge works correctly, with 40 Gb/s reported speed, meaning the the SSDT-TBOLT3.AML has loaded correctly and has no issues with warm/cold boots, etc. However, the Startech PEX8M2E2 in Slot 3 doesn't work at all, no adapter is found.

The only configuration I found to "almost" work is this one:

- RX580 in PCI in Slot 1
- Titan Ridge in Slot 2
- Startech PCI in Slot 3 or 4

This is the only configuration that more or less works, resulting all cards to work together so, I see the SSD in the PCI adapter, and the TB external audio interface works. However, because the Titan Ridge is in Slot 2, the SSDT-TBOLT3.AML as it is is not working, so the card reports 20 Gb/s, and works only after a warm start, which is annoying. When it works after a warm boot, the audio works normally and the system is fairly reliable.

Clearly, my issues are:

- The Startech PEX8M2E2 adapter prevents the system to complete booting, if placed in any of the 16X Slots.

- The PEX8M2E2 adapter doesn't work in a 4X PCI slot if the other 4X Slot is taken by the Titan Ridge 2. It works in a 4X slot, but only if the other 4x slot is Empty.

Considering all of this, what do you think would be the best solution ?

1) Working with .AML files to make the PEX8M2E2 and TR2 working together in Slots 3 and 4 ? How, exactly ?

2) Changing the SSDT-TBOLT3.AML I'm using to work in Slot 2 instead of 4 ? Is that even possible ?

3) Trying to figure it out why the system hangs if the PEX8M2E2 is in any of the 16X Slots ?


Thanks in advance for any help,
 
Last edited:

NoLemon

macrumors member
Dec 25, 2018
83
9
World
Hi everyone, I wasnt here for about 3 years.
a couple of months before the Boot Rom of my Mac Pro 5.1 died. First, a guy near me offered to fix it.
But then I had no time to do get around and, later every one knows what happened.

Just now, I go a stock 2.8 replacement and threw in all the parts I had, Processor Board, Graphics GTX680, PCI NMVE SSD and the Titan Ridge.

before it died, I had working really well with the Windows Reboot System I made. I had it automated, so I just hit the start button and it booted on to Win, and restarted in to High Sierra by it self. Unfortunately I dint know about the EFI killer, and had most likely a non a legacy install.

Im will be using it with an Apollo Thundebolt, and will stick with High Sierra or Mojave. Since it is 3 years back I forgot how I did it.

The 5.1 has still a MP51.007F.B01 Rom.
The Seller installed 13.6, but I guess it was the graphics card which prevented the Rom upgrade.

I still have an original Nvidia, the flat grey one slot one,
so the Rom should be no problem to upgrade.

Now what Im really courios about is, did anyone manage to get it to work reliable without windows and possibly with out open core ?

About 2 years back I read shortly a bit, that there is a way to flash, but it was quite complicated because its two chips and a physical flasher with vice and cable needed, is that still the case?

I got the Titan at the beginning, when the first one got it working with a UAD interface and put a Video on Youtube.

Where on the card can I find out what version it is the card ?
I have only a serial on it and a couple more line code stickers

Some pointers would be highly appreciated.
for starters, I did find the file on page 29.

Im not certain, if I remember right, I have read, that someone got it to work with no cold boot.
But also only as far as I remember, at least at the stage 3 years ago that was not possible, it needed to warm boot to, activate the card.

Thanks a lot =)
Cheers
NoLeMoN
 

NoLemon

macrumors member
Dec 25, 2018
83
9
World
I had the titan running very well activating THB with Windows a but was used only with the Apollo desktop quad.
The older one with the THB 2 connector.
I dont know which Titan I have, it doesnt say anything like V1 or V2.
serial is 190302013XXX

Luna was running also perfectly.
If I really can get it running with one Boot,
and no Windows would be great.

Around where are you located ?
 

KevinClark

macrumors 6502
Feb 28, 2019
340
41
You can get it you need a Flashed Titan Ridge and Opencore 087 Package With Titan ridge SSDT to get one boot automatic no more windows 10 needed I can use 6 UAD devices
 
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