How to check if my laptop is thunderbolt 3 enabled?

I just bought a recent ASUS laptop.

The seller clearly stated on its website that this laptop USB type-C connector was "thunderbolt 3" compatible.

Since, my USB connector doesn't have the usual little lightning logo, I'm having doubt that's this connector is really "Thunderbolt 3"... It's clear however that the connector is USB 3.1 Gen2

I'm still confused with the different types of USB type-C connector so I would like to check if my laptop has the hardware required to be "thunderbolt 3" enabled,

According to this article, my laptop should have a dedicated controller for thunderbolt, but how to be sure?

Any help appreciated..


I finally found a way to verify the thunderbolt compatibility of a computer:

  • If the laptop is really Thunderbolt enabled, there should be a line in the different "BIOS setup options" mentioning "Thunderbolt" somewhere (or maybe "Alpine Ridge" for the host controller codename)
  • If there is no mention of Thunderbolt in the BIOS, then it's likely that your computer is not Thunderbolt enabled..

I know this is a fairly old thread, but I have been looking for a definitive answer myself, as the specs for my HP 850 G5 just say Thunderbolt - ditto for all the details I could find in Device Manager.

Eventually I came across the freeware HWiNFO64 at hwinfo.com, and found the information I wanted ("Thunderbolt 3 Bridge") under the Bus heading. It will also tell you whether you have 2 or 4 PCI-E lanes (I only have two it seems, ho hum!).


On windows machine you can run dxdiag.exe. From there you can save a text file with all you installed HW/drivers,...

Then look for thunderbold in the text. Something like:

Name: Thunderbolt(TM) Controller - 15EB
Device ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_15EB&SUBSYS_08311028&REV_06\C4520491CDB7D00000
   Driver: C:\WINDOWS\system32\DRIVERS\tbt100x.sys, 17.04.0079.0011 (English), 12/30/2018 08:38:22, 137680 bytes
   Driver: C:\Intel\Thunderbolt\setup.msi, 1/7/2019 14:28:28, 8798208 bytes
   Driver: C:\WINDOWS\system32\tbtcoinx_17_4_79_11.dll, 17.04.0079.0011 (English), 12/30/2018 08:38:24, 411600 bytes