Can I Use PXIe-8301 to Daisy Chain Multiple PXIe Chassis?

Updated Jan 3, 2024

Reported In

Hardware

  • PXIe-8301
  • PXI Bus Extension Module

Issue Details

I see that the PXIe-8301 module has 2 Thunderbolt™ 3 ports on it.  Can I use one of the ports on the PXIe-8301 to connect to another PXIe-8301 so that I can daisy chain multiple PXIe chassis together?

Solution

No, NI does not support using the second port of the PXIe-8301 for daisy chaining to additional PXIe chassis. For remote control of multichassis systems, consider using a desktop or rack-mount controller with a PCI or PCI Express host interface card.

The additional Thunderbolt™ port on the PXIe-8301 is intended for Thunderbolt™ peripheral hardware such as monitors.

If you want to daisy chain multiple PXIe chassis together, you will have to use specific configurations for combining or daisy chaining multiple chassis.

Additional Information

Due to the limited number of PCIe buses available on a Thunderbolt™ port, NI does not support daisy-chaining chassis when connected to a Thunderbolt™ port. All PCIe and PXIe hardware consume PCIe buses and going over the available number of PCIe buses can cause hardware to not enumerate, the computer to freeze, or other unexpected behaviour.

Unsupported Configurations:
  • Utilizing the second Thunderbolt™ port on the PXIe-8301 to connect to another PXIe chassis
  • Using a MXIe Bus extension module (such as the PXIe-8364) to connect to another PXIe chassis when the PXIe-8301 is connected to the host.