Help/Advice required re Thunderbolt Controller 15EB absent from Device Manager

Hi Folks,

I am after your help/advice to troubleshoot an absent (built in) Thunderbolt Controller on an Asus Prime X299 Edition 30 Motherboard (BIOS 1301) under Windows 11 Pro 21H2 build 22000.593.

I was intending to look into purchasing a Thunderbolt capable monitor later in the year and thought it wise to verify the Thunderbolt controller/ports were still configured since upgrading from Windows 10. Previously, (under Windows 10) whilst I had no Thunderbolt devices connected the Thunderbolt drivers had been installed and the Thunderbolt Controller (15EB ....IIRC) was listed under 'System Devices' in Device Manager. Windows had installed the Thunderbolt Control Centre App which, under it's details tab showed the installed driver details (Thunderbolt Software). Additionally, under the Thunderbolt Controller, to detail such items as the available ports and controller firmware version. Whilst (not possessing any Thunderbolt 3 devices) I was unable to test it beyond this point I was however otherwise satisfied that everything appeared to be functioning as intended.

The system was clean installed with Windows 11 during March 2022 and all drivers updated to their most recent versions including the Thunderbolt Controller which was initially in Device Manager as an 'unknown device' under 'other devices' as I recall. Once installed the Thunderbolt Control Centre App again appeared and I presumed that all was still well.

Fast forward to this week and noticing that the 'App' had disappeared I checked Device Manager for the Thunderbolt Controller only to find that it too had disappeared and indeed was not even visible under the 'show hidden devices' option.

Launching DriveStore Explorer revealed that the eight related .inf files related to the driver package were all still present so I chose to remove them (force remove) suspecting some kind of driver issue and then rebooted. At this point I expected the Controller to appear once more under 'other devices' as an unknown device but to my surprise it has continued to absent itself entirely which I find rather odd as it is 'built in' to this model of Motherboard and NOT an 'add on' card as was frequently the case when looking online at similar scenarios where the advice (to simply remove and reseat the card) was not appropriate in this case!!

Can anyone suggest what I could have missed or else propose some appropriate steps to encourage it's reappearance, allow me to reinstall the drivers and so to restore function?

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

PC Pilot

Update:

After much fiddling around, I have now located a hidden 'Base System Device' under other devices which is the missing Thunderbolt Controller - 15EB. Choosing the update driver option I installed the requisite drivers having first verified that the .inf files support the 15EB controller variant, it was subsequently confirmed that 'Windows has successfully updated your drivers' reporting 'Windows has finished installing the drivers for this device: Thunderbolt (TM) Controller - 15EB' (see Screenshot).

Unfortunately, the device remains as a "hidden" 'base system device' which reports 'Currently, this hardware device is not connected to the computer. (Code 45) To fix this problem reconnect this hardware device to the computer.'

Inspecting the device 'Properties' (see screenshots below) further identifies the 'location' as: PCI Slot 8 (PCI bus 8, Device 0, Function 0) ...remember the Thunderbolt Controller is built in to the X299 Edition 30 Motherboard so I can only assume that location corresponds to the PCI bus in use rather than to a physical 'slot' such as would contain a regular addon PCIe card.

Can anyone suggest how I might proceed from here to fully recover the Controller and restore function?

Thanks again,

PC Pilot

I have not yet upgraded to windows 11 but am having the same issue- Have you solved this? Sorry to revive a 2yr old thread but desperate times...

Hi GS,

I eventually resolved my issues by updating the firmware [Management Engine Firmware - X299 Platform] and [MEI and Chipset Firmware for X299 Platform] see also [MEI and Chipset Firmware for other Platforms] together with [latest Thunderbolt drivers].

For [other more specific platform related drivers & firmware] this may also be helpful....

Hope it helps!

PC Pilot said:

Hi GS,

I eventually resolved my issues by updating the firmware [Management Engine Firmware - X299 Platform] and [MEI and Chipset Firmware for X299 Platform] see also [MEI and Chipset Firmware for other Platforms] together with [latest Thunderbolt drivers].

For [other more specific platform related drivers & firmware] this may also be helpful....

Hope it helps!

Click to expand...

THANK YOU! Now where am I? I have reverted to build 1803 and it took me almost two weeks to get a somewhat working system again. But I need to be on 21h2 to use the latest adobe and 3d apps i need for work... Man. I am quivering like a dog sh*ttin a peach pit. Should I even bother? I must. So I made a backuo image in windows and just downloaded the 21h2 iso from getmyos. Next is burn a usb in rufus and pray. Asus is allegedly working on helping me to get my alpine ridge back up again via tier 3 support but they are very slow. I am on asus x99e-WS mobo and I really do love this hardware. Why has TBT always been such a time-sucking basket-case of issues? (rhetorical)

Hi GS,

Indeed TBT is a PIA, fingers crossed ASUS tier 3 will restore hardware function!

Don’t forget to report out the resolution steps they provide here, identify your BIOS/Thunderbolt Firmware versions, your functional drivers and list the working BIOS settings for the benefit of other forum members.

Keep us all posted on your journey to success!!

Good luck and best regards!

PC Pilot