ThunderboltEX 3 firmware update ?

[linxeye]

Guys,

I have a ThunderboltEX 3 card running on my RVE. Since Intel latest drivers, posted in december and needed for W10 AU full compliance, I get at each W10 boot a popup to update my firmware that directs me here : https://thunderbolttechnology.net/updates.

Thing is Asus hasn't posted a single FW update for the ThunderboltEX 3. It's running a very old firmware that doesn't support any modern TB devices. Level is NVM 8.xx with no support for external GFX or Network (to mention a few).

Can anyone at Asus update us on the status of the TB3EX board ? Is it still supported ? Will there be a firmware update ? When ?

Thanks.

[Jefe533]

My Thunderbolt EXII/Dual card arrived, and I'm happy to report that it works! I barely had to troubleshoot or think about the installation. Just ripped out my EX3, slotted in the EX2, connected the header cable, booted up with default BIOS, installed Windows Thunderbolt drivers from Asus' EXII website support tab, rebooted with Thunderbolt enabled in the advanced tab of the BIOS, changed ZERO settings (AIC location was correct by default, to the Southbridge slot of my X99-Deluxe II), and boom, my Thunderbolt drive was recognized in Windows!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vvkkz2jm5iinp2e/IMG_20170505_163733273.jpg?dl=0

It's even hot-pluggable, which is a pleasant shock to me. I thought in Windows you either booted up with the Tbolt drive plugged in, or you couldn't use it. I can eject and replug my Thunderbolt drive in willy-nilly, during regular Windows operation. Cool!

On the minus side, only ONE of the two ports on my Thunderbolt EXII/Dual card works. Ugh. A final f-u from Asus to me. Whatever, I can't bother troubleshooting that. Even though it would be nice to have both ports since many external hard drives don't have a daisy chain pass through Thunderbolt port.

Thank you guys so much for the tip that the EXII/Dual card works. To be honest, all my devices are Thunderbolt 2 anyway, and I will NOT be purchasing any Thunderbolt 3 devices, ever.

So this is enough of a solution to my issue, even though I'm mad as hell I had to shell out $150 to buy the last ThunderboltEXII card I could find in stock.

Cheers,
Jeff

[hellokitty]

Jefe533 wrote:
My Thunderbolt EXII/Dual card arrived, and I'm happy to report that it works! I barely had to troubleshoot or think about the installation. Just ripped out my EX3, slotted in the EX2, connected the header cable, booted up with default BIOS, installed Windows Thunderbolt drivers from Asus' EXII website support tab, rebooted with Thunderbolt enabled in the advanced tab of the BIOS, changed ZERO settings (AIC location was correct by default, to the Southbridge slot of my X99-Deluxe II), and boom, my Thunderbolt drive was recognized in Windows!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vvkkz2jm5iinp2e/IMG_20170505_163733273.jpg?dl=0

It's even hot-pluggable, which is a pleasant shock to me. I thought in Windows you either booted up with the Tbolt drive plugged in, or you couldn't use it. I can eject and replug my Thunderbolt drive in willy-nilly, during regular Windows operation. Cool!

On the minus side, only ONE of the two ports on my Thunderbolt EXII/Dual card works. Ugh. A final f-u from Asus to me. Whatever, I can't bother troubleshooting that. Even though it would be nice to have both ports since many external hard drives don't have a daisy chain pass through Thunderbolt port.

Thank you guys so much for the tip that the EXII/Dual card works. To be honest, all my devices are Thunderbolt 2 anyway, and I will NOT be purchasing any Thunderbolt 3 devices, ever.

So this is enough of a solution to my issue, even though I'm mad as hell I had to shell out $150 to buy the last ThunderboltEXII card I could find in stock.

Cheers,
Jeff

Good Job, Damm $150 Hopefully the second port wakes up. I still have not recieved my RMA back, Gigabyte workin still. 🙂

[alfkalf]

Hi,
I'm new here but I have the same issue. I have a ASUS X99 deluxe II with one (in fact 4) thunderboltex 3 card(s).
I buy my cards at amazon. If the card vanishes during the 30 days I can send back to amazon. Thanks to hellokitty, I have resurected several times my card but 2 of them are dead. Like hellokitty, I have Universal audio cards (Apollo 8 and 16) with the Universal Audio driver. But in my case, the cards don't work without the intel thunderbolt driver. I need both. (UAD driver and intel thunderbolt driver)

@hellokitty, thanks for the feedback and can you give us some news concerning your Alpine Card?

Is there somebody who works with thunderbolt 3, designare Gigabyte and Alpine Gigabyte because I'm very tired about asus devices and its warranty support.

@Jeff. Is the EXII more reliable? I try to sell one but it's very hard to find.

Thanks

Yannick

[Jefe533]

Yes, the EXII/Dual has been reliable so far -- even with the Windows Creator's Update.

It was really hard for me to buy one. In fact, the way I did it was to look at Microcenters in cities where people I know live. I found one in stock in Chicago, had a friend go buy it and ship it to me in New York. It was the last one in stock.

One big caveat is that only one of the two thunderbolt ports works on the Dual! Annoying. But I only really need one drive plugged in at a time.

After weeks of suffering through getting the EX 3 to work, scouring the forums, opening my PC and rearranging the PCIE slots so many times, it was shocking how easy it was to get the EX2 card to work. Painless.

It's even hot pluggable! I can plug an external hard drive into the EX2 port and it mounts right away.

alfkalf wrote:
Hi,
I'm new here but I have the same issue. I have a ASUS X99 deluxe II with one (in fact 4) thunderboltex 3 card(s).
I buy my cards at amazon. If the card vanishes during the 30 days I can send back to amazon. Thanks to hellokitty, I have resurected several times my card but 2 of them are dead. Like hellokitty, I have Universal audio cards (Apollo 8 and 16) with the Universal Audio driver. But in my case, the cards don't work without the intel thunderbolt driver. I need both. (UAD driver and intel thunderbolt driver)

@hellokitty, thanks for the feedback and can you give us some news concerning your Alpine Card?

Is there somebody who works with thunderbolt 3, designare Gigabyte and Alpine Gigabyte because I'm very tired about asus devices and its warranty support.

@Jeff. Is the EXII more reliable? I try to sell one but it's very hard to find.

Thanks

Yannick

[Jefe533]

Yes, the EXII/Dual has been reliable so far -- even with the Windows Creator's Update.

It was really hard for me to buy one. In fact, the way I did it was to look at Microcenters in cities where people I know live. I found one in stock in Chicago, had a friend go buy it and ship it to me in New York. It was the last one in stock.

One big caveat is that only one of the two thunderbolt ports works on the Dual! Annoying. But I only really need one drive plugged in at a time.

After weeks of suffering through getting the EX 3 to work, scouring the forums, opening my PC and rearranging the PCIE slots so many times, it was shocking how easy it was to get the EX2 card to work. Painless.

It's even hot pluggable! I can plug an external hard drive into the EX2 port and it mounts right away.

alfkalf wrote:
Hi,
I'm new here but I have the same issue. I have a ASUS X99 deluxe II with one (in fact 4) thunderboltex 3 card(s).
I buy my cards at amazon. If the card vanishes during the 30 days I can send back to amazon. Thanks to hellokitty, I have resurected several times my card but 2 of them are dead. Like hellokitty, I have Universal audio cards (Apollo 8 and 16) with the Universal Audio driver. But in my case, the cards don't work without the intel thunderbolt driver. I need both. (UAD driver and intel thunderbolt driver)

@hellokitty, thanks for the feedback and can you give us some news concerning your Alpine Card?

Is there somebody who works with thunderbolt 3, designare Gigabyte and Alpine Gigabyte because I'm very tired about asus devices and its warranty support.

@Jeff. Is the EXII more reliable? I try to sell one but it's very hard to find.

Thanks

Yannick

[hellokitty]

I would try the Gigabyte Alpine ridge card, I have had no problems with it. or try and find a EXII Dual, it always seems to work. I have some issues right now, but it is windows creative update or the new uad update, i have to go into device manager and scan for new hardware after i restart lately to get the Apollo to work. This problem just started recently. I am also building a new MATX Gigabyte system with a 270 chipset and Thunderbolt support, really strange board that is not sold in america. https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-Z270M-D3P-rev-10#kf well goodluck!

[hellokitty]

yeh i just noticed my second port is not working? i just tried it, it used to work? wierd. I dont have 2 thunderbolt 3 to 2 adapters or i would try with my gigabyte card.

[Sub37]

Thank you so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The amount of time I've spent firstly getting the ASUS TBolt EX3 to work & then trouble shooting its mysterious disappearance... makes my so angry & sad.
But now im almost crying tears of joy.

This thread gave me hope & its delivered.

I'm successful running my Apollo w/thunderbolt via the Gigabyte GC-Alpine Ridge TB3 Card, in my ASUS X99 Deluxe I motherboard.

The Gigabyte GC-Alpine Ridge TB3 Card came with longer cable with I had to use because the short ASUS had different connected at Card end. They were both the same at M/B Header end.

The sales guy asked me what I was going to fit the Gigabyte GC-Alpine Ridge card into because it specifically said it was for set versions of Gigabyte M/B....
I was almost going to lie just to save time, but I told him a lengthy story of my trials & tribulations...
bottom line was this is my last hope obi wan kenobi... unless I can track a AUSU EXII or commit to a rig rebuilt with new M/B which would make my curll up & cry for a while.
He sole it to me and advise it most likely wont work. I was willing to pay & throw it or use in rebuild if it didnt work, but he advise I could return less 10% re-stocking fee... sweet 🙂

I install into slot 16_2, the last place I had the M/B config for testing the ASUS junk. I already had the latest drivers, the Intel NUC drivers later than ASUS, Dell & Gigibyte.
I had to clean up a few M/B settings to want I would expect to be normal for thew card - as I was going more and more extream to try & troubleshoot the ASUS...
I had to connect Tbolt cable into #1 & reboot OS... worked...!!!!!

I than moved the Card to 16_1 as this spaces it away fro Graphis for heat. Change Bios setting to 16_1, Windows saw it - sound is booming via Apollo 😄 so f*&^en happy...

The big test will be if it remains over the next weeks/months but i'm more confident than I was before, as the ASUS junk wouldnt show under Windows anymore.

I have been an ASUS purchaser for a long long time - next M/B (rig upgrade) im moving to Gigibyte.

again chaps, thank you so much for this info!

🙂

[hellokitty]

I am useing the Asus card again in my rampage V Extreme board, it is a replacement from asus, they said my old card shorted out? Who Knows, so far no problems and it has been about 3 months. I have the gigabyte card stored away for emergency/backup. I have a intel nuc with thunderbolt 3 now, and it allways has the latest drivers that do work with all cards and all versions of thunderbolt, witch i do have on several different Pc's . But the Gigabyte card has newer bios than asus, so they still need to update their card. But i dont see that happening anytime soon, since this is a old card now and a niche product. Well im around and still buying and messing with all the Thunderbolt products on PC and Hackintosh stuff also.

[deluxe2Thunderb]

Yep, same issues here. Thunderbolt Ex3 worked for 2 days and suddenly disappeared. The amount of hours spent trying to get it back are gone forever. The associated madness and frustration have run their course. The only us seller on ebay want's $125! But I finally found a deal @ fry's for $59 with free shipping! Yes that's the GG Alpine Thunderbolt 3 card. Grab yours now, the asus cards are apparently total garbage! Enjoy Gigabyte Alpine Ridge Thunderbolt 3 PCIe Card @ fry's baby, get yours now!