So annoying! I could have spent less and had a more future proof motherboard! I had not done my research well enough / it was not advertised but the Z87 Deluxe Board (without built in Thunderbolt) actually does have a built in header! It was early days back then for Thunderbolt on PC. My fault for being one of the first to go for an Asus Deluxe Dual with Built In Thunderbolt 1 I guess. I can see no other reason for doing it like this. Not what Asus told me, just my impression from the overall discussion. I think the header partly performs a 'dongle' function. They did not state this explicitly but i think it might be the case that part of the reason for the header is to ensure that thunderbolt cards can only be used on certain Intel Approved boards.

The Answer was I could definitely not use their Thunderbolt 2 (or 3) addon card if I did not have a thunderbolt header available on the board. I only got though to the hotdesk support guys though. Just logged into this forum for first time since Christmas, sorry for the delay in response to you.

I feel it's a small thing, maybe security related, some setting to change somewhere but I have not been able to work this out and it's quite frustrating.I am wondering about the same thing. I've spend an hours with Dell Support today explaning the situation but they could not come up with a solution. I ckecked the bios on the T7910, TBT is enabled, no security (SL0), the dock is recognised and approved in the TBT app on windows, I've looked online and on Dell community threads but was unsuccesfull in troubleshooting my issue. I also have another small dock (Dell DA300) and the same issue arrises, no problem to output video and use the usb port when connectig it to my laptop USB-C port, but only video works when connecting it to the TBT add-on card on my T7910. I know my dock is working fine because I use it with my XPS13 laptop without issues and all ports (USB & Ethernet) are working. I'm connecting the TBT cable to a TBT3 docking station, the display works (2x 2.5k resolution) but no usb connection.the ports get powered but no data get transfered (no mouse, no keyboard no usb stick, ethernet etc.). I have a Precision T7910 with a TBT header on the motherboard, I bought a TBT3 PCIe card (555-beox) specifically to add TBT3 to T7910 workstation, the card was added on slot 3 (as per Dell's official video on youtube) and the header cable connected (a cable that I got from an Asus Thunderbolt card, not the official NK4P3 Dell cable).

Question: Has anyone ever tried running this particular AIC in their T7910? I sincerely hope that a kind-hearted Dell Engineer will also read and respond to a widespread problem. If you select the specifications sheet from their Web page, then you'll see virtually identical motherboard connectivity akin to the Dell AIC i.e., PCI Express 3.0 x4 -В including 2 x Thunderboltв„ў 3 Type-C Ports (with up to 40Gbps bandwidth) - 1 x DisplayPort IN Port - 1 x Mini DisplayPort IN Port - 1 x TBT Header. It supports 40Gbps bi-directional bandwidth per channel with Thunderbolt 3 port. In short, it's rather disappointing and frustrating that Dell doesn't seem to be inclined to support a TB3 upgrade, especially for one of their most widely used high-end workstations.ДЄnyway, I recently discovered aВ TB3 AIC made by ASRock (follow the link). Adding insult to injury, this will limit the speed to Thunderbolt 2 specifications. It turned out to be a less than ideal situation because I also needed to buy a Thunderbolt 2 cable connecting to the older Dell AIC on one side and aВ TB 3 to TB 2 Adapter on the other.

I own and operate a Dell Precision dual processor T7910 as well and have been looking for a Thunderbolt 3 add-in card (AIC) since the original configuration only includes Thunderbolt 2.Д«ecause I needed a high-speed interface between external disk drives and my workstation for data backup, I chose and purchased an Akitio (now Other World Computing) Thunder3 RAID Station, which features the new Thunderbolt 3 connectivity.

Thunderbolt add in card