Possible DAQmx and PXI Interaction ?

[psgeorge]

I have a windows application I am developing using Visual Studio 2005 (VB.net) with Measurement Studio 8.1.2.472.  It is PXI based using a PXI-1033 chassis with a PXI-4065 DMM and two PXI-2575 switches.  Within the last couple of weeks, the application will not start in “Debug” (i.e. the initial form does not display) and after a period of roughly 30 – 60 seconds, the following exception is thrown…

{"An error was returned by one of the internal function calls.

DAQmx Error -200324 occurred:

Measurements: Device not available in NI-DAQmx. It is possible that the device is being used by Traditional NI-DAQ or that the device is being reset.

After using a device in Traditional NI-DAQ, you must reset the device before using it in NI-DAQmx. For SCXI devices, you must reset the communicator DAQ device. Call the Traditional NI-DAQ Device Reset VI or the Init_DA_Brds function. To reset all devices in Traditional NI-DAQ, right-click the Traditional NI-DAQ Devices folder in MAX and select Reset Driver for Traditional NI-DAQ. If you are resetting the device, wait for the reset to complete."}

I have attached a MS Word document to this post which better defines the problem I am having with images from MAX.

 

Thanks

Message Edited by psgeorge on 06-16-2008 07:01 AM

[Corby_B]

Hello psgeorge,

Thanks for your post! If I am understanding you correctly you have a system that runs without a problem until your device's reset. Then you are unable to continue operation until a restart of the computer is performed. I notice that the error you are getting DAQmx Error -200324 occurred: is usually triggered when a Traditional Daq device is trying to use the same card that the DaqMX driver is using. I do not feel that this is the problem in your case. One thing to check is to see if several services are not running when this happens. Are you able to perform a "self test" in Measurement and Automation explorer (MAX) when this happens? You can do this by right clicking on the device in max and going to self test. Take a look at this knowledge base that talks about the different services that stop running in windows when you get this error.

Self-Test Error with MAX 3.0 on Windows 2000 and Windows XP

If this is the case you could simply restart the services instead of restarting the computer every time. The other problem that I have noticed is your USB-6009 not getting a serial number. Has this happened more than once? Did you start noticing the problem with you PXI system after you installed the USB device?

The DaqMX driver is used to manage all devices on your computer and that is why you see them listed under DaqMX devices in MAX. For instance, when an install of the NI-DMM driver a version of DaqMX will be installed if you do not have one already on your computer. What versions of NI-DaqMX and MAX do you have on your computer? You can find this information in the software tab in MAX. The latest version of DaqMX is 8.7.1 so if you do not have that version I would recommend upgrading. You can do this at the following link. If you have an older version I believe upgrading the driver might solve your problem of the PXI system resetting at random.

Drivers and Upgrades

Let me know if any of this helps you and please post back if you have any further questions.

cheers!

Corby_B
http://www.ni.com/support

[psgeorge]

The problem with my application not being able to communicate with the PXI hardware only seems to occur when the USB-6009 device address is 0x0 when I start the PC.  Restarting the PC results in this address being some value and then the application communicates with the PXI hardware without problem.  This has just started within the last couple of weeks and I have had the application running much longer than that.  When the error occurs, I am not aboe to run a self test on the USB-6009... I'm not sure about the PXI devices as the problem hasn't occurred for the last couple of days.  This may be a moot point as I have both the USB-6009 DAQ and the PXI hardware installed on my development system at the same time.  In the production environment, only the PXI hardware will be installed on the PC.

If I understand what you said, both the USB-6009 DAQ and the PXI DMM use the same NI DaqMx driver so there is no chance of having a mismatch.  The software version I am using for the DaqMx is 8.7.1f3.  MAX is 4.4.1f0.

One other piece of information... I typically shutdown both the PC and the NI PXI-1033 chassis at night.  In the morning, I turn on the PXI-1033 chassis and then start the PC.  When the problem with the USB-6009 having a 0x0 device address occurs, restarting the PC w/o restarting the PXI-1033 chassis fixes the USB-6009 device address and then there is no problem.  Could I be starting the PC too fast when first turning on the PXI-2033 chassis?  It doesn't seem like there should be a large amount of time required for me to wait before starting the PC,

Anyway, I will try to gather more information and post again later.

Thanks for your help!

Paul

[Corby_B]

Hello Paul,

Thanks for your post back! You do indeed have an odd problem here. I would like to ask a few other questions as you gather more information. What kind of computer is this on and what is the make/modle of the PC. It seems that I have heard of other situations where the PC is not allocating resources correctly. Also it would be good to check to see if the PC you are using has any BIOS updates. You had mentioned that the other deployment system just has a PXI chassis and does not see the same problem? If you plug the USB Device into a different computer do you see errors and loss of communication? One other thing to try would be to change the PCI slot that your MXI card is in and see if that has any effect on the problem. Even trying to put this system on a different computer my shed some light on loss of communication as well. This might be a big task to over take however. Let us know what other information you can give regarding this problem. I believe I can get a hold of a PXI 1033 chassis and I will see if there are any noticeable problems with communication loss. Thanks again Paul and good luck!

Cheers!

Corby_B
http://www.ni.com/support

[psgeorge]

Hi Corby,

I am using the following for my development PC.  The BIOS has not been updated.

Dell Precision 390
Intel Core 2 CPU
6320 @ 1.86 GHz
2.0 GB of RAM

This is the only PC that has both the PXI-1033 and the USB-6009 Daq installed.  I have numerous PC's us9ing the USB-6009 which are not having any problem.  I do not have any other PC's installed with the PXI-1033 yet (I have several on order and will probably be ordering more).  I do not anticipate that any of these systems will have both the PXI-1033 and USB-6009 installed simultaneously.  Since I first posted, I have been starting the PXI-1033 chassis first when I come in, waiting a few seconds and then start the PC.  I have not had any problems since then.  I guess I should try to start the system again without the delay just to see what happens, but when things seem to be working...

I'll keep monitoring the situation and let you know if I have another problem.

Thanks for your help!

[Corby_B]

Hello psgeorge!

Thanks for the update. I was talking to some of the other engineers here and like you said its always a good idea to let the initialize routine take some time to start before turning the PC on. With every computer comes different initializing routines. Let us know if you have any other problems when you start the chassis in different time orders. Glad to hear that you will be ordering more systems. Do you have a support contract with NI? I would recommend one if you will be having multiple systems.

Keep us updated if your problem continues. Nice talking to you psgeorge!

Cheers!

Corby_B
http://www.ni.com/support