Get HTC Vive Wireless Adapter working with ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB3

A little while back I got myself an HTC Vive Pro Eye headset, and I wanted to get into wireless VR, but there’s not enough PCIe slots on the motherboard.

Not to worry! You can use the M.2 slot on the back since that’s a PCIe interface!

How?

  1. Get yourself an M.2 to PCIe x4 adapter. I believe the model number for mine is LM-141X-V1.0
    The extra power is also needed since the M.2 interface doesn’t supply enough power for the PCIe card.
  2. You’ll probably need a PCIe x4 extension cable so you can route the slot to a more sensible place.

That’s basically it. However, it might not work at all to begin with. I went back and forth with HTC (their support was pretty good despite more than once giving me the corporate answer that they don’t support my setup), but what the actual issue was no one knows. All I know is that after rebooting and re-seating the wireless PCIe device a bunch of times it suddenly worked. When I got the PCIe extension cable I experienced the same thing, and it solved itself the same way through many reboots and re-seatings. I haven’t had an issue since, not even with BIOS upgrades. At first I thought issuing the command ‘lspci’ in the Linux command line somehow solved it since it coincided with its resolution the first time, but that didn’t work the second time. This means you could risk this type of setup actually not working, but the parts – with exception of the HTC Wireless Adapter itself maybe – are fairly inexpensive.

It’s also worth noting that the solder joints of the M.2 to PCIe x4 adapter might end up touching the motherboard when you install it. Obviously that’s not good and should be avoided. I had to basically cut off all the standing solder joints on the adapter to avoid this. I probably should have put a piece of electrical tape between the adapter and motherboard, but it works as is for me.