Options to use PCI-4461 in newer PC

[Ian_12]

Hi everyone. I am in the process of updating a calibration system that is quite sluggish. The software we run uses the PCI-4461 card and so I need it in the new PC. Of course, nothing has the PCI slot anymore for the latest motherboards I have been looking at. I have found some adapter boards that will use the PCIe x1 slot but I am concerned that the adapter might be a bottleneck. Yeah, PCIe x1 is much faster than PCI, but will the adapter cause a slow down.

So I wanted to see if there are any tested methods that work fine with modern computers and Windows 11. I am not positive, but a different card might work. The company that builds the system hasn't mentioned using any other card, so I am uncertain if they have tried testing anything else.

[santo_13]

No, PCIe to PCI adapters do not reliably work with NI PCI products. You need a motherboard with a native PCI slot.

You get motherboards with PCI slots from industrial PC vendors.

[Ian_12]

Thanks for the reply. I have been contacting industrial suppliers, and most everyone that has a PCI slot still uses an onboard PCIe to PCI bridge. Nothing seems to have a native PCI if going with anything more modern. Even the current PC we have, that was bought from industrial supplier, has a PCIe to PCI bridge that the NI 4461 is running on. The cavity is, I have noticed during certain test runs, there is some kind of "noise" in the data. After knowing about this bridge chip and how these cards want a native PCI, I am wondering if that is the issue. It is only during a certain test where the plot looks like crap at times (higher data collection) but during other times (low data) it seems to work fine. I wish I could test this system on a native PCI though.

[rolfk]

While most external PCIe to PCI bridges have serious trouble to bridge for anything but the most main stream PCI boards like network cards and mass storage controllers, the ones build into the mother board of systems like from Advantech or similar are usually quite a bit more reliable. Yet there are no guarantees! PCI bridges are in theory a great feature, in practice they are extremely difficult to implement since the PCI protocols are very complex and there are many different protocol modes and versions that can be used. Making them all work perfectly is almost impossible, so they are tested and optimized for the most common situations.

NI boards are using many advanced PCI bus features and are at the same time not quite ubiquitous like an Intel Ethernet interface or mass storage controller. So they are often not tested with such bridges during development of the bridge device and easily can run into an incompatibility or bug in the bridge implementation. Industrial manufacturers such as Advantech are explicitly testing with many more industrial devices than the typical cheap no-name manufacturer will. And these industrial manufacturers often will accept bug reports and actually create BIOS and firmware fixes to make them work with specific hardware.

But you will have to talk with the seller or distributor. Are they willing to provide a loaner to test if it works? What is their policy about firmware and BIOS updates?