Lost interrupts and other issues with certain LGA1155 chipset implementations.

Recently, in May of 2013, one of Dynamic Engineering´s SpaceWire clients experienced a particularly vexing problem. The issue was tracked down to the combination of LGA1155 i7 and chip set. The issue is that several of the chip sets do not support PCI directly leaving it to the motherboard manufacturer to use a PCIe bridge to PCI. Some manufacturers use "cheap" bridge devices which do not fully function when operating with high bandwidth devices - SpaceWire with DMA for example. The symptom is lost interrupts and / or corrupted data.

Since Dynamic Engineering has no control over what devices are placed on Motherboards we must take the stance of recommending only motherboards with native PCI implementations [no external bridges required] unless the client verifies the operation of the external bridge. We can recommend the IDT and Pericom devices at this time due to extensive use on our own carriers.

We have identified 12 - LGA1155 chipsets: B65, Q67, B75, Q75, Q77, H77, H61, H67, P67, Z68, Z75 and Z77. Of these chipsets: B65, Q67, B75, Q75, Q77 and H77 support conventional PCI : that is a native port within the chipset for PCI. These chipsets are recommended for use with Dynamic Engineering PCI devices.

The remaining chipsets: H61, H67, P67, Z68, Z75 and Z77 do not support PCI directly requiring the motherboard manufacturer to implement the PCI bus [if supported] indirectly using a PCIe bridge to PCI. Dynamic Engineering does not recommend these chip sets for use with Dynamic Engineering products.


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