PXIe-8301 & PXI Serial Interface Modules

[umit.k]

Hello,

I have a PXI system consisting of PXIe-8301 thunderbolt controller, PXIe-1085 chassis and some PXI and PXIe modules.

When I connect this system to a laptop with native thunderbolt port, I can access every module without any problems.

But when I connect the same system to a desktop computer with a thunderbolt card installed in the PCIe slot, NI Serial Interface modules do not appear in MAX.

Any idea would be greatly appreciated.

[umit.k]

Any idea would be greatly appreciated.

[santo_13]

That is interesting to see that certain cards are not detected. Typically it could be a case of insufficient PCIe address space.

How does the driver software installed on the laptop compare against the desktop?

https://knowledge.ni.com/KnowledgeArticleDetails?id=kA00Z0000004BA0SAM&l=en-US

This article has a fine print that says NI does not officially support PCIe thunderbolt cards and only motherboards with native thunderbolt are supported.

[umit.k]

Dear Santhosh,

Thank you for your response.

The same drivers are installed on both computers.
How can I verify that the problem is with the PCIe addressing space? If this is the problem, how can I fix it?

P.S: When I inserted the PCIe card into another desktop computer, the same modules did not appear in the MAX.

[santo_13]

https://knowledge.ni.com/KnowledgeArticleDetails?id=kA03q000000YHwZCAW&l=en-US - This article explains determining the number of root busses available.

https://www.ni.com/en-us/support/documentation/supplemental/14/understanding-mxi-express-enumeration... - This article states the number of root busses required for each type of chassis.

[Robert__R]

Hi umit.k,

What version of PXI Platform Services do you have installed? Please try the latest (if you haven't already). It works around a bug in the Windows Thunderbolt driver on some Thunderbolt hosts that could explain your symptoms.

On that note, there are differences between Thunderbolt host adapters. Do you know what part is on the laptop vs the PCIe card?

- Robert

[umit.k]

Sorry for the late reply. I was working on the problem. It took longer than I expected.

Now the desktop computer has the latest PXI Platform Services installed (21.0). But the problem still persists.

Both host adapters have Thunderbolt 3 standard.

[Robert__R]

Hi umit_k,

What does device manager show? Please select something in the chassis (NI SMBus controller, etc.) then choose view-->by connection. That should open to the thing you had selected.  Then expand all the things on that branch from the root port to see if everything is there.

- Robert

[umit.k]

Hi Robert,

Device Manager does not show any NI serial interface. I am attaching relevant pictures.

Additionally, I would like to point out that NI-Serial 21.3.0 is installed on the computer.

- Umit

[Robert__R]

Hi umit_k,

There are some interesting things in your pictures. One is that you don't have a Thunderbolt driver installed (the "Base System Device" near the top).  I don't think the driver will fix the issues, though.

The second thing of note is that Windows isn't running in PCI Express mode. There are some cases where running legacy PCI mode helps, but not generally for PCI/PXI Express systems. If you've changed it with BCDEdit you can restore it in an administrator cmd prompt with "bcdedit /set pciexpress default". If the PC BIOS doesn't allow PCI Express mode then there's nothing you can do about it.

Historically Thunderbolt enumeration was handled by the BIOS, but more recently Windows has added support for it and newer systems have Windows do the enumeration. This requires native PCI Express mode and the Thunderbolt driver (among other things). This looks like the BIOS is in charge of enumeration and not doing a good job of it. I'm not sure there's much you can do about once you've updated the BIOS and installed the Thunderbolt driver.  Does the system behave the same when you hot-plug the system as when you boot with it connected?

- Robert

[umit.k]

Hi Robert,

I installed the Thunderbolt driver on the computer and now I can see it in Device Manager.

I wrote the PCIExpress command you specified on the Command Line, but unfortunately the problem was not resolved.

I had recently updated the BIOS thinking it was related to this issue.

Even if I hot-plug the system or boot the computer with the thunderbolt cable plugged in, it behaves the same.

Somehow the NI Serial drivers are not communicating with the attached NI Serial hardware. I'm starting to think it might not just be the PCIe Thunderbolt card causing this.

Umit.