ASUS B-550A Gaming not Communicating w/ Thunderbolt EX4 (Mobo + Expansion)

WillyZonka69 · June 23, 2023

Alright, This one is for all my Audio nerds out there. I have run into an issue I cannot figure out. I have been obsessing over this for the last 30+ days. I don't know If I am missing something right in front of me, or if I just truly bought something incompateble with my system. I have purchased an Apollo Twin X Thunderbolt to be used on an AMD Ryzen bassed processing system. Here is the system I am running:

ASUS ROG STRIX B550-A Gaming motherboard
Ryzen 9 5900X Processor
Asus ThunderboltEX 4 Thunderbolt Expansion Card
Corsair Vengance 32GB DDR4 3200
Nvidia 3090 Ti FE GPU
ASUS ROG STRIX 1000W PSU
Windows 10

Now IN THEORY, these parts should work together in harmony. I belive that the ThunderboltEX4 card is functioning properly because I can see the Apollo attached to Port one in the Thunderbolt(TM) Software. But I do not see any sign of the Apollo Hardware in the device manager other than the UAD-2 Drivers. Universal Audio Thunderbolt WDM also exists in Device Manager, but location is unknown. UA Control and Metter cannot detect the hardware either. I am not sure if the thunderbolt card is not bridging correctly in some way, but i am not even getting the "thunderbolt functionallity limited" Error anymore, just nothing. I attempted to find any hidden MOBO settings, but my BIOS does not have very many options reguarding Thunderbolt, But I was able to turn it on. If any of you have any experice with this, or have been in a similar situation, I would appreciate the help. I have read the manuals for my MOBO, TB Card, and this Apollo Twin X TB and I cannot figure it out.

Here is what I have tried so far:

-The first issue I saw was my NVM was out of date for the Thunderbolt Card, There was an update and thunderbolt software provided by ASUS, but I recieve this message when I run the Shell.efi in BIOS

-I then attempted to roll back all TB compatable BIOS, and still no luck.
-Cleared CMOS

-Tried multiple different name brand cables

-Spent hours digging through device manager to make sure my card is working properly, from what I can tell they are.

-Rebuilt system and reinstalled card 3 times

-Reinstalled all assorted Drivers a plethera of times

The Apollo shows up in TBControl, but I cannot Approve it for a reason that I have spent hours not anywhere close to finding.

I am not sure of an easier way to check if the TB Card is functioning properly other than device manager.
Any knowledge you may share can to help put an end to my suffering is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Willy

Edited June 23, 2023 by WillyZonka69
Added PSU and OS