Question MSI Z490-A Pro compatible with Thunderbolt PCIe cards?

[Genralkidd]

I'm looking to add a Thunderbolt PCIe card to my MSI Z490-A Pro motherboard. I saw MSI has their own Thunderbolt PCIe cards. The MSI Thunderbolt M4 is only compatible with 500 series chipsets and above according to their product page. Meanwhile the previous gen MSI Thunderbolt M3 is listed as only compatible with the 300 series chipsets like the Z390. So that puts the Z490 right in the middle of those two. I'm wondering if the Thunderbolt M3 is actually still compatible with the Z490-A Pro even though it's not listed. The Z490-A Pro does have MSI's thunderbolt connector on the motherboard but I want to make sure the M3 is forward compatible with 400 series chipsets before I get it.

 

[rgd1101]

MSI Global English Forum

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forum-en.msi.com

 

[Genralkidd]

So I ended up buying the MSI Thunderbolt M3 card but I can't seem to be able to get it work on my PC. It's plugged in, power is getting to devices I plug in, but Windows doesn't seem to see anything was plugged in. When I plug something in, Windows doesn't even play the new device sound. The Intel Thunderbolt software doesn't see anything plugged in either. I did enable Thunderbolt in the BIOS but despite all that, the motherboard explorer in the BIOS shows nothing is actually plugged into that PCIe slot even though there's power going to devices plugged into the card. Are there drivers I'm supposed to download for this or did I set it up wrong?

 

[rgd1101]

plug the header cable to the motherboard?