Using a Thunderbolt 4 PCIe Card Makes a Dell Precision Fixed Workstation Restart or Show an On-Screen Error

Computer unstable with Thunderbolt 4 PCIe add-in card added

Precision 5860 and 7960 Tower fixed workstation owners may experience their computer behaving in an unstable manner. (For Example: Automatic shutdown, automatic restart, restarting to an on-screen STOP error message, and so on.)

This is only seen under the following conditions:

• You have a Thunderbolt 4 PCIe add-in card installed.
• You attempt to hot plug an external thunderbolt 4 device to the computer using the ports on the add-in card.

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The Intel Xeon w3, w5, w7, and w9 (Sapphire Rapids - Workstation) CPU-based platforms do not support those PCIe slots associated with the CPU.

They only support the Thunderbolt 4 PCIe add-in card when it populates the PCIe slots associated with the Platform Controller Hub (PCH).

Dell Thunderbolt 4 PCIe add-in cards must populate the PCH associated slots in the Precision 5860 and 7960 Tower motherboards to work correctly. (See Table.1 and Figure.1 and Figure.2 for the correct placement.)

(Figure.1 Precision 5860 Slot Position)

(Figure.2 Precision 7960 Slot Positions)

You can find step-by-step instructions on how to install or remove the PCIe add-in card in the teardown instructions in your computers manual:

• Precision 5860 Tower Manuals and Documentation Page  
• Precision 7960 Tower Manuals and Documentation Page  

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