Device Addressing/Naming Problem

[PJ Harrison]

I am using a PCI-GPIB card and driver 2.2 in a new PC running win2000.

Neither our own in-house software or Rohde and Schwarz ESPC-K1 software works since the upgrade of the PC to a new one (the old PC was also win2000 but I don't know what driver it had for GPIB).

In GPIB Measurement and Automation the PC sees all the instruments attached and can talk to them with the basic GPIB commands. However, the other software does not recognise or talk to them.

I previously had a similar problem when the software was installed on the original PC but this could be solved by renaming the devices from DEV1, DEV2, etc. to the names required by the software (SG1, SG2, SG3, ATTN, IG, RX, DVM, DEV8, DEV9, DEV1, DEV11...). DEV10 was renamed
to DEV1 for ESPC-K1 as this uses DEV1 for the R&S ESPCK1 software. I have gone into Program files/National Instruments/NI-488.2/Bin and run GPIBconf.exe and renamed the devices exactly as they were on the old PC but it still doesn't work. The in-house software doesn't find the devices and shows them as not-present, but the R&S ESPC-K1 software says "IEEE-488 did not recognise the device name "DEV1". Obviously I have changed DEV1 to DEV10 (and address 10) but the default for address 1 should be DEV1 anyway, so even if the renaming didn't work it should still see DEV1 anyway. I have also tried communicating with DEV1 left as DEV1 and ESPC-K1 still could not find the device DEV1.

Also I don't have an icon for GPIB in control panel. Is that right for this driver version? I do have the icon for it in device manager however, but I believe I previously had an icon in control panel on the old PC, and didn't need to change the names from the GPIBconf.exe program hidden in the depths of the
NI directory! Could this be related?

Help! I can't get the old PC back, IT aren't very helpful, and at present most of the lab won't work!

Thanks in advance for any help,

Phil.

[Sebastian N]

Dear Phil,

with this link you can look, which driver you need.
http://www.ni.com/support/gpib/versions.htm

Have you try to install a old driver (NI 488.2 v.1.7)?
Let me know if this help,

best regards.

SebastianN

[PJ Harrison]

I had thought of installing v1.7 but it clearly says on the driver page that if I'm using a PCI-GPIB and windows 2000 that I want v2.2. However, I installed 1.7 and it now works. It therefore appears contrary to the instructions and documentation that 2.2 does not support device templates (at least not properly!) on my PC. I had doubts when it seemed so difficult to get to the device template in the first place.

Thanks for encouraging me to try the old driver Sebastian, even though the documentation I found said it should be 2.2 I wanted.

Phil.