Does the XIO2000A work in PCIe 2.0 slots?

Thanks for the info

We have loaded the latest BIOS from intel's website for the DH55HC m/b we are using, but it makes no difference.  Its dated 12/09 so maybe they are working on a new one?

-steve

DK

>>We are not privy to exactly what the root cause of this compatibility issue is (was), but we have verfied that it is resolved via host BIOS update.

Can you give me some more details on this?.  what m/b?, what BIOS version worked?, what TI XIO200x chip which did not work now works?.

thanks

Steve

The only example I am permitted to comment on specifically is the Gigabyte P55-UD3L. The version F5 BIOS released 1.28.2010 resolved the PCIe compatibility issue we were experiencing with several of our (and other vendors) PCIe products. The other (Ibex Peak) examples are not yet shipping and are still subject to NDA.

Hello Steve,

not sure we can help here as we also went through the nightmare of having suddenly all our PCIe  boards no longer working after many years of solid operation.

As we stand today, we had hoped the new BIOS released by Intel around March time did cure our most dramatic issues. Unfortunately with the advent of Windows 7, we are experiencing a new sort of revenge with rarely occuring (typically after 2, 7 or even 25 hours of operation) freezes.

We are currently focusing our research on Intel's DP55KG motherboard but suspect this to be a more general issue over the entire Intel new generation of V2.0 PCI Express root port.

We are using TI's XIO2000A in front of a Nexperia PNX1500.

It looks like there seems to be a special curse on audio companies?

In our most recent effort to analyse the issues we have with Windows 7 (already lost 3 weeks on that one), we have seen that the issue stems from unreliable memory writes/reads to the Nexperia local memory (happening once every so many times).

Overwriting XIO2000A PCI registers with default values, after BIOS and Windows 7 started, seems to reduce but not toally eradicate the occurence of our freezes.

Any updated information from TI, who seems to know much more than they are willing to tell us, would be highly appreciated at this point in time!

TI: please if you know of any current motherboard (i7 or i5 compatible) that works under Windows 7, let us know.

Steve: we share the pain...

Claude Cellier, Merging Technologies

Claude

Not sure if this means anything, but according to intel, the DP55KG has not passed Win7 logo tests:

http://www.intel.com/products/desktop/motherboard/windows7.htm

We also recently found another problem with the XIO2000A.  It has terrible bus master read performance.  So, we are changing to use the XIO2001.  I wonder if this would also fix your problems?.  You could experiment by using a PCI version of your Nexperia card plugged into a XIO2001 EVM.

-steve

Hi Steve,

Thanks for your answer.

We also have measured poor performances on reads on the XIO2000A.

Unfortunately, switching to the XIO2001 is not really an option for us as we have already several hundreds of boards using the XIO2000A and our customers want to use them on the newest platforms (P55 chipset for instance).

However, we are currently testing a H57 chipset based motherboard and it seems to be rather promising, we've had no problems with it for now.

Anyhow, we would really appreciate if someone at TI could give more information as of what exactly is going on, if there are any known working platforms and/or settings to be able to use the XIO2000A on any motherboard.

Loïc Andrieu, Merging Technologies

Loic,

There are no platforms on the market that we are aware of on which the XIO2000A does not function.

There was a spate of Intel H55s that came out with problems, but after a BIOS update from Intel, all the problems were gone. We have no insight into what they fixed in this BIOS release.