Will PXIe chassis 1083 work with Thunderbolt 4?

[SankarDe]

Hello Friends,

I am new to NI and am planning to buy PXIe Chassis 1083 which runs with Thunderbolt 3 support. I shall be running PXIe 6363 DAQ and PXIe 6738 AO cards with it.  

When I was planning to buy a laptop with Thunderbolt 3 for remote control, I found out that it is fast vanishing from earth. Intel has come up with Thunderbolt 4 which has better specifications than Thunderbolt 3 (Thunderbolt™ 3 vs. Thunderbolt 4 Technology – Intel). My feeling is that Intel will push Thunderbolt 4 for all the new laptops and Desktop cards from now on.    

This brings me to an important question. Will I be able to run my NI PXIe Thunderbolt 3 systems with the newly available Thunderbolt 4.0 hardware and software support ?

I would request NI to clarify on this because I do not want to get stranded after buying the products and not been able to run it with my new laptop. Please help me to decide.

Regards,

Sankar

[santo_13]

Your post requests a reply from NI, but this is not an official medium of communication for NI. This is a public forum for users of NI's products to help each other, occasionally some NI employee might reply but not guaranteed. 

I would stay away from Thunderbolt chassis, the biggest pain is that there is absolutely no way to know if your laptop or computer card and bios supports all features of Thunderbolt for the chassis to perform properly.

If you search for the PXIe-8301 in the forum, you will see how much pain it has been for folks. I have personally faced the issue and ended up switching to a embedded controller.

If you already have a 1083, I would recommend stay with the hardware that is working unless your are fine if your new investment doesn't work well with 1083 or you're okay to spend hours debugging why things doesn't work if you are unfortunate.

[SankarDe]

Thank you, Santhosh, for your reply. I would stay away from Thunderbolt for now. I have read about the problems with PXIe-8301 and Thunderbolt in the forum. Instead of buying the 1083 chassis, I shall rather go for PCIe-PXIe 8381 card and PXIe 1071 chassis. I was also skeptical about direct access to memory for Thunderbolt 4. In the Intel site, it is mentioned as "Enhanced Security - Memory isolation is a key security capability that helps protect computers from data loss and attacks like memory snooping. Thunderbolt™ 4 technology now requires Intel® VT-D-based direct memory access (DMA) protection or equivalent. (The Thunderbolt™ 3 protocol supported this capability, but the latest generation makes it a requirement.) DMA protection helps ensure that accessories connected through a Thunderbolt™ port can only access the data for their specific workloads by isolating data in memory." Although I am not an expert to understand everything but this can be tricky to transfer data from the PXIe DAQ cards to the remote laptop.

[ZYOng · Accepted solution]

You will experience the same pain regardless of using Thunderbolt (8301, 1083) or MXI (836x, 837x, 837x). The reason is that most non-NI computer manufacturer does not design their BIOS to support large PCIe usage of peripheral modules and NI modules. 

There is a chance that you have to go through MXI-Express Compatibility and Connectivity Troubleshooting Guide. Sometimes, changing a different host computer might just work. The only guaranteed way is to use NI Embedded controller. NI R&D designs and validates their BIOS for the use case. Of course, at a higher cost since the embedded controller costs more than the remote controllers.

Based on my experience, if you are using just one or two modules, it is usually trouble-free to use the remote controller. As the system gets larger with more modules, the PCIe enumeration gets more complicated.

Lastly, see Driver Verifier DMA Violation Blue Screen With MXIe or Thunderbolt Modules to learn more about the DMA protection.

[santo_13]

I will second ZYOng's message, the easiest and robust way is the embedded controller as NI has control over BIOS and they can guarantee it works to the PXI or PXIe bus specifications, but yeah, it is on the expensive side.