Audio USB device issues

[Rus_K]

Hello. We have TI Audio device with USB interface. It is running fine on XP. In XP the device is found in device manger under NI-VISA and sound devices.

Now we are trying to run the same code on Win7, and we are having issues. Labview cannon find USB device. We did flush device with new firmware for Win7 from TI.

When I plug USB in the system, it finds it and I can see it under USB devices.

At first it was under sound devices, but NI-VISA was missing. I manually ran VISA Wizard to install USB-VISA. It went OK, the NI-VISA showed up in the device manager, but then device no more listed in sound devices.

Therefore, when we run our code and need to select sound source the windows does not see our audio device since it is not listed in sound devices.

Next, I placed .ini file for device in windows directory and restarted Win7. After restart device showed up under sound, but NI-VISA was gone.

After I ran VISA Wizard again, NI-VISA came back but device again was gone from sound devices.

Is there something special with Win7 and NI-VISA USB?

In normal condition do I even need to run VISA wizard, or NI should automatically pick up USB devices?

Are there any steps I am missing.

Thank you for any help 

[Kracken]

Hi Rus_K,

What TI audio device are  you using?  I see where other people have had problems with the TAS1020B in Windows 7.

From one of the TI employees in that forum:

"In Vista and beyond, if the device does not respond correctly for inquiries for Current, Min, Max, and Resolution requests per the specification, the initialization will fail and the driver will unload. This goes for all unit and control types you have implemented in the device."

I am not aware of any differences in the functionality of the NI-VISA driver between Windows XP and Windows 7.  Many USB devices are automatically seen as a virtual COM port, but this is not always the case.  If you can tell me what audio device you are using, I may be able to give you a better answer.

Before you ran the VISA Driver Wizard, while the device was recognized as a sound device, what were you seeing in LabVIEW?

What version of LabVIEW and NI-VISA are you using?

Are you using the device on the same computer with a new OS, or are you using it on a different computer?

Are you running the 32 or 64 bit version of Windows 7?

Regards,

Brandon V.

Applications Engineering

National Instruments

www.ni.com/support

[Rus_K]

Thank you Brandon,

I am using TI TAS1020bpfbg4, so I think it is the same as TI 1020B. I did read probably the same forums, but they did not make much sence to me since we do nto write any custom firmware.

Before I run VISA Wisard, labview does not see any USB device only COM ports. MAX does not see anything eather. However I can see the device in windows device manager under USB and sound devices.

I am running now Labview 10.1 (evaluation). Have 8.2 Professional develop., but have not tried. Before on WinXP they used labview8.2.

NI VISA is rev5.0

I am using different PC for WInXP and Win7. We had to reflush device for Win7, so I do not think it works with WinXP anymore.

When we use XP and old devices they work just find.

My Win7 is 64bit system

Thanks again

[Rus_K]

Brandon,

We also have to put .inf file in windows folder. The description of the file has:

;This WDM Windows Setup Information File contains the information NI-VISA
;  needs in order to access your instrument.  Do not modify the contents of
;  this file unless you are sure about what you are doing.

I do not know where the file came from. The original code was done by the consulting company.

We were told this file has to be in the windows directory in order for the code to run.

Does VISA requires any .inf files or it is NI-VISA file generated by VISA wizard?

Thank you

[James_D]

Hmm, I am curious, do you have any sort of test software from TI that you can use to ensure that the new firmware was properly loaded? I'm going to try to find some reasons why this might not be appearing in MAX, I'll post again once I've found something. Please let me know about the test software though.

Thanks,

[Rus_K]

I think I figure out the  problem, ot at least I made it work.

I had to disconnect device first and then run VISA Wizard to create .inf file.

I had manualy tell wizard the device parameters.

Then I copied .inf file into windows\ind directory and ran install.

Now the device manager picks up the NI-VISA and still has USB device in sound devices folder.

Not sure why if NI-VISA wizard automaticaly creates file, after that windows cannot pick up the device as the audio.

Thnak you