Thunderbolt 2 Display Problem

NPDPdev · February 25, 2019

I am planning on building an extremely custom Hackintosh inside of an old Mac Pro case. I'll spare you all the details, but basically I'm planning on using the highest end Apple thunderbolt 2 display. This display is non-negotiable and I would ditch the Vega 56 that I plan to put in the computer before I would ditch the cinema display. I know I could use mini display port but he display has certain IO ports in the back of it (like an iMac), and I have to use a thunderbolt connection to utilize them. Obviously even if I adapt the Vega 56 output to mini DP, I would only be getting use of the screen and not the ports. Is there any way that I could force the GPU output through a standard thunderbolt connection via software? I know this is available on Windows 10, but don't think there is any feature similar on MacOS. Is there any hardware peripheral (like a reverse splitter) that I could use to force the GPU output through the thunderbolt connection?

I'm very worried that there is no other way to do this. I don't want to have to modify the display in any way (I already have to splice enough wires to keep the original IO shield), but apparently the logic board within the display converts the signal to mini DP anyways. I may be able to splice a regular mini DP cable with the input from the logic board and drill a second hole to run both cables.

Any other suggestions are appriceated.

Sanibola · February 25, 2019

I don't think what you are planning to do is possible, I think the software just can't recognize it because of it being Thunderbolt 2, you can't really force software or get a software to change a GPU that AMD doesn't make.

NPDPdev · February 25, 2019

37 minutes ago, Sanibola said:

...I think the software just can't recognize it because of it being Thunderbolt 2...

I can hook it up using a thunderbolt 2 port, but it would just be using the CPU's iGPU. I'm wondering if I can inject display output into a thunderbolt 2 connection.

NPDPdev · February 26, 2019

I have solved the problem. The motherboard's supported T3 AIC has two mini DP inputs. These inputs inject video data into the TB3, allowing for a connection to TB3 monitors, or TB2 with a converter.