WORBENCH FREEZING RANDOMLY USING IOTECH Parallel datashuttle

[BIGECK]

We have been building special pupose torque machines for the oil industry using initially ISA daq modules and later IOTECH DataShuttle modules via the parallel port. Since we changed to Windows XP we have a long term unsolved problem. The workbench experiment simply freezes randomly either after a few minutes or some hours. The worksheet has been unchanged for this application for many years. We tried to alter all settings we could to improve it ie, changing the port settings to advanced and allow any interrupts etc. but no resolution was found.

Is there a better driver (Currently 32.dll) ? Can we change more around on the PC BIOS to accomodate this better ? We would have abandond Dasylab would it not have been for some machines are already delivered and operating with this snag.   

[RobSims]

Hi BIGECK,

Thanks for posting on the NI forums.

Just a quick question about your system- which CAQ cards are you currently using? Are they the IOTech DataShuttle's you mentioned, or are they currently NI devices?

If you can let me know, then I'll see what I can do. Thanks,

[BIGECK]

Hello Rob

Thank you for responding. The datashuttle is now obsolete it is a DS 16-8-GP-AO (Parallel port) We have around 24 machines in the field of which 3 running on XP with this symptom.

We are quite desperate and prepared to even look at new driver development.

The fault is random. It simply freezes the Dasylab. We looked at the windows task manager during this event. We also changed various Parallel port settings and adjusted the MIT time. Recently I investigated the possibility to alter the registry to stop XP checking the Parallel port?

In order to get going again we must stop the experiment and then start it again. If this happens in our machine process we can't get out of it other than shutting the PC down. We use a screen lock.   

Kind regards

Alexander 

[RobSims]

Hi Alexander,

Thanks for the further information. Given that the DAQ card you are using is a non-NI product, i.e. IOTech's, the driver will either be IOTech's, or DASYLab-specific. As such it is not an NI product supported directly by National Instruments.

Having said this, you will have to contact either IOTech's, or DASYLab's support centres to request assistance.

DASYLab support: http://www.dasylab.com/index.php?action=home

IOTech support: http://www.iotech.com/kb/search_ext/index.html

In my opinion, given that you are operating under a new operating system (XP), I would suggest you contact IOTech first to see if this is a known issue, and if they have a fix.

Apologies that we could not help directly. If there's anything we can do then please let us know.

Best regards,

Message Edited by RobS (AE) on 01-06-2006 05:07 PM

[RobSims]

Hello again Alexander,

We've had a thought here in the UK office. Given that both components in your system are from companies owned by National Instruments, I will see if there may be something we can do for you from NI technical support. This may save you some to-ing and fro-ing between IOTech and DASYLab.

If you could perhaps contact me at the NI UK office (details below) and quote the service request (SR) number, I will take some of your details so I can start looking into this one for you. I look forward to hearing from you.

Tel: 01635-572-400,  SR Number: 315574

Thanks,

Message Edited by RobS (AE) on 01-09-2006 10:31 AM

[BIGECK]

Just to say that we loaded Windows 2000 just to move away from XP but the result was the same. I got more running time before it frooze.

Alex