Communication problems with NI PXI 8176 unit

[shimonshami]

Hi,

• I've got a unit that is connected from a GUI PC with LABVIEW 6.1 Version that should communicate with a RT (unit NI- PXI 8176).
• The communication line between both of them is an Ethrnet the connecting cable is crossed.
• When I connect them (the GUI PC and the PXI controller) together with a crossed line I've got somtimes error messages.
• When I'm connecting a switch between both of them it run good, with no problems.

Any ideas,

Regards,

Shimon. 

[TMC-NI]

Hi Shimon,

Whats the specific error codes you are receiving, and how often do they occur?  This information may explain why this is happening.

Thanks

[shimonshami]

Hi Tolga,

• When the Host PC and the PXI Unit are connected with a crossed cable the Host PC is loosing part of the Information that is sent to it through the crossed cable.
• When I connect them (The PXI Unit and the Host PC) with a simple 10/100bps Switch they work correctly (as they should work) Using the same program that I've used before with the crossed cable.
• It seems that there is a problem with the driver of the LAN card on the PXI unit.

My problems are as follows:

• Where the LAN card driver is located on the PXI unit?
• How can I remove that driver and re-install it again?
• Is it (The driver) written in LabVIEW to open/debug it?
• How can i debug it because when I'm connecting the Etehrnet switch (for debugging) its working corectly. I'm using LabView version 6.1.
• Can I send an email to your email (I need it) because I need to add more info (like a picture of the PXI monitor messages etc.)

P.S At the PXI monitor there are no messages while the communication stops.

Regards,

Shimon.

[TMC-NI]

Hi Shimon,

Regarding your questions:

From what you've described, I doubt that the issue is due to your ethernet driver.  The following KB describes why you may be getting poor performance when directly connecting to your RT system via a cross-over cable:

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/FD24D98FF428F21686256B64007FB6C1?OpenDocument

This tidbit I think may be the issue:

"If one ethernet card thinks it is running full-duplex, and another thinks it is running in half-duplex, problems can occur. If the half-duplex configured card receives a frame while transmitting a frame (which, if the other end is full-duplex this is entirely likely), then it may interpret that as a collision. When collisions occur frequently, network performance becomes very poor."

That document also provides instructions on how to change the ethernet cards to use the same duplex setup.  Please follow those instructions and you may resolve the issue.

However, if you'd still like to reinstall the drivers, then the following KB describes the driver locations for the PXI controllers: http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/B6BE8A0BFD128FBC86256DBF006E8F83?OpenDocument
Note that the 8176 is in the same series at 8171 PXI.

The driver is NOT written in LabVIEW, the ethernet driver is not an instrument driver, it is an Intel hardware driver.

Unfortunately, I am unable to provide you with our company email addresses.  After following the above recommendations if you are still having questions, then you can upload pictures here, or through our ftp servers. 

[shimonshami]

Hi Tolga,

Thanks for all your help, your reply helped me very much.

Thanks,

Shimon.

[shimonshami]

Hi Tolga,

Thanks for all your help, your reply helped me very much.

Thanks,

Shimon.