Hi,
I’ve got a laptop with an i7-8650u motherboard and a spare M.2 slot. There’s no native Thunderbolt, but I’ve heard stories about people extracting EFI blobs for this sort of thing. Is it theoretically possible to do something like this and create an external TB3 controller?
@wendell did something SIMILAR for the Threadripper TB build, but I’m not sure if that would be similar enough to help.
Cheers,
R
Following.
This seems mostly doable considering some laptops support M.2 x4 lanes (over PCIe gen 3), which is equal to about 30Gb/s (3.94GB/S), however also seems expensive because the thunderbolt I.C itself is quite expensive, hence why many laptop OEM’s omit it when producing laptops with USB-C.
This adapter “may” work if you can also fine a male-to-male M.2 extender, but I’m not sure, and I couldn’t find one.
This PCIe card partnered with this Sintech adapter may also work, but I also don’t know. According to the “compatible model” list of the PCIe card, it seems like you’d likely have to trick some drivers/firmware in to getting this PCIe card to work.
That’s the extent of my knowledge. Would love to know if it would actually be possible to get thunderbolt on an unsupported laptop via the M.2 connector.
I’ve been reading <url=https://hardforum.com/threads/use-usb-c-monitor-without-usb-c.1911817> this very interesting thread about getting USB-C with DP-alt mode and they occasionally reference full TB. Apparently the GC Titan Ridge cards can be used on usupported boards for merging DP and USB-C, but they will not actually enable the full TB without software support. That’s more question I’m trying to ask here.
I still need to properly enable my M.2 slot anyway, so this is just starting off as a thought experiment.
R
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