PXIE 8381 not working

[Jianhongg]

Hi, Robert,

I am sorry that I made a mistake.

The right phenomenon is as belows.

Booting with the PXI chassis disconnected in Windows 7,

1. PCIe card bios compatility mode enabled and installed MXIe BIOS Compatility software 18, the PCIe card shows up in MAX.

2. PCIe card bios compatility mode disabled and uninstalled MXIe BIOS Compatility software 18, the PCIe card shows up in MAX, too.

By the way, when installing the MXIe BIOS Compatility software 18, there is a warning as the picture shows.

Thanks,

Gu

[Jianhongg]

Hi, Robert,

Is that the pcie8381 won’t support newer Intel motherboards? Such as z390, z490 and z590 chipset? The three motherboard I have tested are Asrock z490 PG itx tb3, MSI z590i unify and a Intel NUC9i9QNX. The first two motherboards have the PCIe bus address of 0~0xFE. Is there any supported newer generation motherboard of z490 or z590? The only case of supported mother I have searched from google is a Dell x99 7810 workstation. But it is too old.

Or is there any compatible motherboards? Please leave it here. Thank you very much!

B.R.

Gu

[Robert__R]

Hi Gu,

It's not really an issue with the chipset or CPU (x16 slots usually connect directly to the CPU). It's typically an issue with the BIOS/EFI firmware. There's a lot of complexity in PCI Express so there are lots of opportunities for bugs. The DIP switch on the PCIe-8381 hides everything from the BIOS to avoid most bugs, then the driver does the setup and initialization.

Since the PCIe card is visible in MAX and device manager it's linking to the CPU fine. These cards are used in lots of motherboards -- servers, workstations, and desktops -- across multiple generations. 

I still suspect there's something wrong with your 8381 board(s) because of the event viewer messages. They indicate that the device IDs aren't right when the BIOS compatibility SW is installed -- are you seeing the same messages on other OS/motherboard versions? I haven't seen issues like you're seeing and I'd like to be able to swap in other boards to see what the problem is (or see this in a system that's able to boot without the BIOS compatibility mode to look at the IDs). I'm not sure what the next step is since you've tried plenty of motherboards and don't have other 8381 boards.

The bus numbers of 0~0xFE are the best you can get, but even in limited systems the errors would be different. 

- Robert

[Jianhongg]

Hi, Robert,

I give up installing the pcie-8381 on my new intel platform PC and buy a new Dell workstation T5820. Fortunately, it won't stuck or freeze anymore.

There are some new questions.

1. I can't find my pxie-5644r in MAX. After checking again, the problem is that I can't find the pxie devices which located in slot 5 to slot 9 of pxie-1078.

2. I can't find the pxie-1078 chassis in MAX.

Some screenshots for you as below.

Thanks,

Gu

[Robert__R]

Hi Gu,

Both of your issues are symptoms of the same problem -- the PXIe-8381 isn't linking to the PCIe switch on the PXIe 1078 backplane. From your device manager screenshot you can see that two of the bridges don't have anything under them. One goes to slot 2, 3, or 4 (presumably one of them is empty). The other goes to the backplane switch that fans out to slots 5-9.  Because that link is down MAX can't identify the chassis.

I think that's also why the BIOS compatibility mode isn't working on your other PC. It tries to identify the chassis but can't so it errors out (with a message about invalid IDs).

I assume there's not an "Upgrade Firmware" for the NI SMBus Controller in MAX, right? I don't think that will be there without the chassis identification.

As a side note, the chassis and 8381 cards will use around 20 bus numbers. According to your screenshots they're at 0xB2 (180), which is in the partition with the range 0xB2-0xFF = 0x4D = 77 bus numbers, so that's not the limiting problem.

I don't know why the chassis link isn't working. There are some debug LEDs on the back of the PXIe-8381 that show whether the 4 backplane links are linked -- you can probably figure out which of them is for the backplane link since it's not lit when there are cards in slots 2-4. Then you can observe whether it ever links by looking at that LED.

I'd suggest pulling out the PXIe-8381 and looking for damage on the card or back connectors and looking at the backplane pins for any bent ones. I can't say which piece is broken but the fact that it isn't linking to the backplane explains all the trouble/symptoms you've had.

- Robert

[Jianhongg]

Hi, Robert,

Yes, there's not an "Upgrade Firmware" for the NI SMBus Controller in MAX.

There are only two backplane leds of pxie-8381 blinking which is led 0 and led 1, as shown in the video of attachment.

Thank you very much.

B.R.

Gu

[Jianhongg]

Hi, Robert,

I have examined the pxie-8381 that the card and the back connectors are okay. From the video of attachment which was captured in debugging the Z490 motherboards, the backplane led 0,1,2 are good. Is it means that the pxie-8381 is okay?

Thanks,

Gu

[Robert__R]

Hi Gu,

If 3 of 4 of the PXIe-8381's backplane links work then the 4th one probably does. I can't say for sure which side of the link is broken but it seems more likely that it's the PXIe-1078.

- Robert

[Jianhongg]

Hi, Robert,

I will lend a PXIe Controller and check if it is the problem of PXIe-1078.

If I have any progress, I will update here.

Thanks,

Gu

[Jianhongg]

Hi, Robert,

With a Keysight M9035A Controller, It has same problem which can't recognize the slot5 to slot9 devices. 

With the NI Resource Manager settled, it shows as follow picture.

With the Keysight Resource Manager settled, it shows as follow picture.

And in BIOS I can find the PXIe Port Configuration setting as follow picture.

Maybe I should change the PXIe chassis?

Thanks!

Gu