Question 1

does it work under linux, or dragonflybsd?

Accepted Answer

ASUS TunderboltEX II expansion card does not work under Windows 10, because there are no currently  available drivers from Asus. I have not tried TunderboltEX II with Linux or Dragonfly BSD, but if you contact ASUS support they can tell if drivers are available for Linux or Dragonfly BSD. DragonFly BSD is a free and open source Unix-like operating system created as a fork of FreeBSD 4.8. Matthew Dillon, an Amiga developer in the late 1980s and early 1990s and a FreeBSD developer between 1994 and 2003, began work on DragonFly BSD in June 2003 and announced it on the FreeBSD mailing lists on 16 July 2003. The latest version of DragonFly BSD is 4.4 released on 12/7/2015. You would need to ask DagonFly BSD support if there are any known available drivers. Support for ASUS TunderboltEX II expansion card is going to be limited, since Thunderbolt  III is twice as fast as II. Thunderbolt III has been replaced by external PCI EX 2.0 X 16 at 64Gbits/second 3.2 times faster than ThunderboltEX II. New hardware devices are being introduced so fast, products can become obsolete before you install them. It's all about the fastest data transfer speed.

Question 2

I only managed to get this to work with my Apple Thunderbolt display once after alot of hassel (Windows).

I unplugged the TB connector at the back fo the TB card, then installed the connector again. Display will not come on..

First and only time the Apple Thunderbolt display worked on the computer, the sound worked in the speakers.

How did you guys get the Apple Thunderbolt display to work at all with this card??

Accepted Answer

Probably easier if you have a second display. There is a Thunderbolt icon in the notification area that you can right click to see "Devices waiting for Approval". Maybe getting into that and approving the display would help. I didn't really have issue installing though, so I'm not sure.

Question 3

Will this work with an Apple 27" Thunderbolt display?

Ideally I would like to put this in my hackintosh, plug it into my GTX 770 using the Displayport cable and use a Thunderbolt Display via the Thunderbolt port.

Feasible?

Accepted Answer

So I had the same idea.

So far I did get the card to work with Windows and a Thunderbolt Display. First of all, this card only works with a few motherboards, I have the ASUS M6E and dual GTX 780's. Go to the Asus page for this card to see the list of compatible hardware.

After installing the card, I noticed the ports on the back of the Thunderbolt Display don't seem to work, I have a thread in the ASUS ROG forum that hasn't lead to an answer.  Other than that, Windows has no way of controlling the brightness or volume.  I also noticed the speakers intermittently stop working.  In addition to that, you can't do a soft reset, the video will not pass through the card unless it is a full power on + power off.

Outside of those issues, the screen works great.

I am still working on the Hackintosh portion of the equation because I am having troubles getting OSX to boot up properly.  I'm not entirely sure it is the result of the card though.

I hope this helps.

Question 4

Hi

I am looking over this adapter in order to be able to use thunderbolt for data transfer.
from my workstation which is a dual xeon cpu I need to transfer large files (raw) from my portable HDD to the workstation.
since the USB 3.0 is to slow for such data I was thinking to use this adapter.
do you think this will work?
maybe not in case of dispaly port, but actually i dont care for the  display port since i already have 2 x quadro K4000 in the system

Accepted Answer

The card will give you 20GB/s speed, however, it only works with the following ASUS boards:

MAXIMUS VI EXTREME
SABERTOOTH Z87
Z87-PRO
Z87-PRO(V EDITION)
Z87-PLUS
Z87-PLUS(VivoMouse EDITION)
Z87-A
Z87-A(NFC EXPRESS EDITION)

I purchased the card to use with Apple's Thunderbolt Display and it works fine.

Question 5

I have a sabertooth 990fx rev2 gen3 motherboard. It has a thunderbolt pin out at the bottom of the board. Will this work with my motherboard?

Accepted Answer

No, this is for specific asus motherboards with display ports that want to add thunderbolt connection support.

Question 6

I have a Dell T7500 with PCIe slots. I would like to buy an audio interface for recording that uses thunderbolt 2. If I put your card in a PCIe 4 or 8 slot on my computer , can I connect the 2 devices without an issue?

Richard

Accepted Answer

This card is designed only to work with certain ASUS motherboards. It requires a proprietary connection to the motherboard in addition to the PCIe slot connection. More info can be found on ASUS's website, or by googling "asus thunderboltex ii".

Question 7

I have a question regarding TB2 connectivity with my GTX 970. I don't know how do i connect my GPU to TB2, then how do i connect my monitors? Plz help

Accepted Answer

I don't have any Thunderbolt monitors, so I haven't done this. If I remember correctly the directions come with the card, and are basically: Use the supplied displayport or mini displayport cable to the GPU to the displayport input on the Thunderbolt card. Then plug your Thunderbolt monitor to the thunderbolt connection.

Question 8

can I connect this card to Dell Optiplex 990 PC?

Accepted Answer

Probably not. The requirements are very specific. You need to have a motherboard with the Thunderbolt header to connect the card to it. Asus provides very specific hardware that it is compatible with.

Even if your motherboard has a thunderbolt header, it still might not be compatible.

Question 9

Hey! I have a Asus x99-a /3.1 and it has an internal port called thunderbolt header. But i cant for the life of me find out if that means i can install a thunderbolt ex II on it? anyone who knows for certain?

Accepted Answer

Hi Endre,

Yes you can absolutely install the ThunderboltEX cards onto those boards that have the Thunderbolt header on the motherboard.  I would say that they are an absolute nightmare to configure once they are physically installed.   They WILL NOT install with Windows 7.  I've been able to get them to recognize in Windows 8.1 Professional 64 bit, but only sporadically.   We build forensic workstations for customers and we have completely taken this option off of the website due to the "quirky" nature of these Add On Cards.   Asus will not be much help in the way of getting the cards configured.  I've called them about 17 times to get the card functioning and they always go back to, "It's a bad board" or "It's a bad card".   I would wait and get a USB 3.1 card instead.   Let me know if you have more questions.   These cards have potential, but good luck getting them to work.

Question 10

i have an asus x99-a mb with a thunderbolt header but is not listed as compatable, will this card work?

Accepted Answer

Again, why answer if you don't know the answer?  Duh!

Questions & Answers