Forgive me for saying this, but when you open VISA with MAX, you are much slower in asking for the VISA "Write" than when you wire the two functions sequentially in LabVIEW. Try putting a delay of, say, 200 msec between the VISA Open and the first Write. Similarly, put a delay between the Write and the Read.
I presume that you did exactly these steps in MAX, correct? What about terminating the Write command -- did you have to give MAX a <CR><LF>? (I don't see it in your VISA Write).
Bob Schor