HP Thunderbolt-2 PCIe 1-port I/O Card F3F43AT !!!! Windows 10 Driver ???

[taccess]

Hi

I have a Thunderbolt card on the way , it is a F3F4AT.

I have looked at the HP site and tried to install the thundebolt driver/software but it wont install. It stops during installation and states only compatible with windows 7 or 8.

Look i know there must be a work around as win 10 and teh latest bios on the z820 are ready for this card.

Can someone please save me some time and assist with where i might find a driver that will work ? maybee the z840 win 10 thunderbolt driver 15.2.35.250 Rev.B

Is there a way to somehow install the HP thundebolt driver a workaround maybee?

Any assistance is appreciated

[DGroves]

the only way i know that DOES WORK is to install the card/drivers under windows 7 and then upgrade to windows 10

if you go this route i highly recomend making a image of the drive so future reinstalls can simply use the working win 10 image instead of the win 7 to 10 method

have you tried to install the drivers using win 7 compatability mode?

Edit, digging further i found this information:

HP began supporting Thunderbolt under Windows 10 as of March 2016. The latest compatible software/driver at this time is 15.2.35.250 Rev.B (SoftPaq SP74948), and can be aquired through the HP Support Center  but this driver may be only for the thunderbolt 3 card, you will have to check

Edit: the above sp74948 is the driver HP lists for the z840 using the F3F43AT thunderbolt-2 card under Win 10 x64

          as such i see no reasion it will not work under the z20 with win 10 x64

Look under the "Driver-controller tab on this page:

https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/hp-z840-workstation/6978842

latest win 7 x64 driver for the Thunderbolt 2 card you have is sp64805

https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/selfservice/closure/hp-z820-workstation/5225041

also, it appears that you also need a recent version of the bios to use this card either use 3.91 or latest 3.92 for the z820 and the card must be in slot #5

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c04283970

[taccess]

Hi 

thanks for the reply.

when the card arrives I will come back and continue the conversation .

i will try the z840 win 10 Driver first.

i already have updated the bios to 3.92a.

thanks again 

[DGroves]

so why does the z840 have a win 10 listed driver for a card that is sold for both systems and the z820 does not?

it comes down to offical support from HP

the z840 has offical HP support for windows 10, which is why it has a current win 10 driver listed

the z820 has no offical win 10 support, and as such will not have it listed. why no offical win 10 support?

well the z820 support ended BEFORE MS released windows 10 that's why. while the system does run windows 10

without any problems, it's not a OS that hp has tested  on this system and as such the drives for that os are not listed

and a last note, while the z820 is out of normal support, HP does offer "extended care pack" support for this (and other) systems if you have such a plan,, hp will still cover the hardware and support the listed software packages that the workstation was certified for. untill the system no longer qualifies for the extended care pack support

[Doug51]

I have installed the card with the Z840 driver, seemd to install fine, and I see the Thunedrbolt Controller under System devices in device manager, saying it is working properly.  However when I cannect my thinderbolt audio device the Z420 cannot see it - I have installed the thunderbolt driver for the device do I  need any additional software to use thunderbolt?

[Doug51]

How did it go?

[DGroves]

have you connected the internal TBolt cable that runs from the card to the motherboard? have you installed the video passthrough cable from the card to the video card?

is the audio device a TBolt 2 or 3 device? (only TBolt 2 devices will work)

[Doug51]

Thanks for the response, I have connected the internal cables, but not the external cable to the video card, is that essential? I'm running 2 monitors from the 2 video card displayport ports. The audio interface in TB2 (Orion studio 2017, and has apparently been deta tested successfully on z230 and z820 with this TB2 pcie card)

[DGroves]

the TBolt video cable is usually required, as it allows the video stream to passthrough the card depending on your setup it may or may not be required (in some select configurations)

my advice is to buy the cable. it can be found on ebay/amazon/newegg you want one that is under 1.5 ft

[BambiBoomZ]

Tacess,

The original September, 2015 HPQuickSpecs page for the F3F43AA:

http://www8.hp.com/h20195/v2/getpdf.aspx/c04203028.pdf?ver=8

>states:

> "The HP Thunderbolt™ 2 PCIe Card is compatible with the HP Z230, Z440, Z420, Z640, Z620, Z840 and Z820 Workstations"

Compatability: The HP Thunderbolt™ 2 PCIe Card is compatible with the HP Z230, Z440, Z420, Z640, Z620, Z840 and Z820 Workstations.

NOTE: Not all models are available in all regions.

The HP Thunderbolt™2 PCIe Card requires a DisplayPort input to enabledownstream DisplayPort devices on the Thunderbolt™daisy chain.The HP Thunderbolt™ 2 PCIe Card is offered as a Certified System Solution with the compatible workstation platforms and select graphics cards only.

Additional cards may perform well, but have not been fully tested to the full standards to confirm a Certified System Solution.Z820: nVidiaK600, K2000, K4000, and K5000.

Overview: 

Z840: nVidia K620, K2200, K4200, K5200*, K6000*, M6000*Z620 and Z420 :nVidiaK600, K2000, K4000, and K5000*Z640 and Z440: nVidia K620, K2200, K4200 Z230 TWR: nVidia K600, K620, K2000, K2200, and K4000Z230 SFF: nVidia K600, K620, and K2200

* Denotes double-wide card

The HP Thunderbolt™ 2 PCIe Card has specific PCIe slot requirements for correct operation. Z820: slot #5Z840: slot #5Z620 and Z420: slot #3Z640 and Z440: slot #3Z230 TWR: slot #4Z230 SFF: slot #4*When using K5000 in Z4xx and Z6xx, use slot #5 for the K5000, and use slot #3 for the Thunderbolt™ 2 PCIe Card ."<

Given that HP lists compatibility with both zX20 and zX40 workstations, the latter of which were supplied new with Windows 10, it seems that the card should support Windows 10.

However, the specificity of the compatibility with only certain GPU's and slot placement evokes the idea that the card is very proprietary and may only work on the above HP systems running the HP OEM Windows.

There is a possibility that the drivers are very specific and embedded in the HP Windows 10. I use an HP Z Turbo Drive M.2 256GB AHCI in a z620 that is similarly specific as to compatible systems. Demonstration of HP proprietary configuration: When the Z Turbo Drive was placed in Slot 4, and with no other preparation, the computer started Windows 7 and stated, "Preparing your computer for it's first use,"  meaning that the HP OEM Windows 7 was ready and waiting and Windows was already activated. Later I tried that same drive in one of the office z420's and Windows 7 was activated on that system- although it referred to it a z620- and it ran all the little utilities that had been added at that point.

As for Thunderbolt specifically, make sure that the basic Thunderbolt drivers are loaded at startup. Apparently, the HP OEM Windows 7 includes these and loads them by default. All of the office HP zX20's show in Task Manager > Processes that Thunderbolt is loaded at startup even though there is no Thunderbolt device on any of the systems. I like to minimize startup programs for perofrmance reasons, but when Thunderbolt was stopped from loading, there was a warning at startup that it was disabled.

Beyond that, consider that the  F3F43AA card is from 2015- I think the first year of 3.1 Type C, and a more generalized, more modern design should have a wider compatibility. Be aware of the cards that require a motherboard header.

BambiBoomZ