PC hangs when using Sony XCG-SX99E GigE camera and IMAQdx

[MichaelWestwood]

Hi,

I am trying to use the Sony GigE camera with IMAQdx 3.7 with Windows 7. In MAX I can see and configure the camera without a problem. When I continuously acquire images (ie, Grab in MAX) it runs fine for about 20 seconds and then locks the PC up more comprehensively than anything I've ever

seen. The mouse and keyboard are dead, so no Ctrl-Alt-Delete, all I can do is switch the power off and restart.

My laptop doesn't have an intel Pro1000 NIC and I'm aware this is the only NIC that NI supports but I have used it before with Basler cameras with no problem. I have searched for a cardbus2 Pro1000 card with no luck.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Mike

[Kevin_H.]

Have you tried stopping the grab for 19 seconds (or right before you think it'll hang) and then starting it up again? Would it hang after 1 second or another 20 seconds? In other words, is the problem in the time of acqusition or is it in the number of frames? My guess would it'd be the time of acqusition (meaning you could go 19 seconds at a time over and over). If this is the case, what happens when you adjust the frame rate? Does the time change? It's likely something VERY low level is timing out and the whole machine is waiting for some sort of response at a very low level that isn't happening. As a result, the machine continues to wait indefinitely and the only way to make it stop is to restart. Unfortunately, because it's unsupported, there's only a limited amount of stuff we can do to help you, but the more information you can give the better chances we have!

What Basler cameras did you have working before? Maybe we can narrow down some differences between the cameras that are causing the problems.

Do you ever have any problems with Snap or is it only Grab? What settings seem to change the behavior?

[MichaelWestwood]

Hi,

Thanks for your inpu Kevint.

It seems that the problem may have been related to the ethernet cable length. I was using cables less than a meter long and I've how replaced them (from PC to switch and camera to switch) with cables 3m long and I am still testing but it now seems happy!

Thanks 

Mike

[Kevin_H.]

Excellent!

[MichaelWestwood]

I've also found that sometimes my D-Link GigE switch seems to get confused and the cameras appear to start misbehaving. When I reboot the switch all is well again.