USB-6008 driver version issues?

[JSA]

In the course of troubleshooting an issue I am having with using the USB-6008, I tried switching drivers around to see if the problem persists.  I started with DAQmx 8.3, under which my program works ok for several hours until the system (Windows XP) eventually crashes a horrible death, slowing everything to a crawl forcing a hard reboot.  It has done this on several computers.  I have been unable to find what, if anything, my software is doing to cause this behavior. 

So, I decided to roll back to version 7.5 of the DAQ drivers to try and reproduce the problem there.  According to everything I've read, version 7.5 supports my device.  I uninstalled 8.3 using Add/Remove programs then installed 7.5, plugged in the 6008 but only got the "Flash" loader (or whatever) and that was all I ever got: no devices under MAX.  (Under 8.3, the flash loader driver pops up, but then the device itself is recognized.)  I get similar results when trying DAQmx Base 2.1 as well as version 8.0 of DAQmx.  Installing 8.3 (or 8.3.1) gets me back to the beginning, where my program runs for hours before taking down the whole system. 

All the program is doing is monitoring and updating digital I/O, as well as the analog inputs, a couple times a second each (it's not doing continuous data acquisition).  I've used other NI-DAQ devices (PCI based) in other programs for years successfully, and those are much more demanding than this program.  If anyone has any info regarding my original problem or even just how to roll back to the 7.5 drivers for troubleshooting purposes, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Thanks!

-John

[Nicholas_B]

Greetings John,

NI-DAQmx version 7.5 does support the USB-6008.  To use the device with this driver, you should uninstall NI-DAQmx 8.3 first and then proceed with the installation of version 7.5, rebooting whenever prompted.  Also be sure to perform the software un-install and install without the device plugged in.  If you already did so and are still having problems, take a look at the status of the USB-6008 in Device Manager with NI-DAQmx 7.5 installed.  Does it appear with an exclamation point?  Take a look at this KB for instructions on how to update the driver through device manager if this is the case. 

Changing your driver version could definitely provide some insight into the problem, but it sounds like your program could be causing the crash.  Do you get any memory usage errors before/after the crash?  Do you receive any errors at all...or does the system just slow down significantly?  Do user actions provoke the crash, or does it just happen on its own?

Let me know if you have further questions...

Regards,

Nicholas B

National Instruments

[JSA]

Nicholas,

Thank you for the response.

Yes, I uninstalled 8.3 completely then reinstalled 7.5 with no luck, as did my boss on his own computer (with identical results).  I could only get it to work again when reinstalling 8.3.  With 7.5 installed, the only thing that shows up in device manager is the "USB-6xxx Flash Loader" (or whatever it's called), with no exclamation point.

My original problem could very well be something in my program, but it really isn't doing much; it is simply reading and updating the I/O (each channel with its own task, for a total of 22 tasks: 12 DIO, 2 AO and 8 AI).  It is part of a much larger program, and the system only crashes when the USB device is plugged in.  The tasks get created only once and are not cleared until the program shuts down.  It sits there monitoring each input (or updating each output, depending on the config) four times a second using single point reads and writes.  The one time I captured it happening on my dev PC I managed to get task manager up and the "System" process (pid 4) was pegged at 100% and killing my app didn't release it (usually the system is too far gone to even get task manager up).  This has now happened on three different systems using two different USB-6008 devices.  I have monitored the app for memory leaks and never had anything come up, and anyway the NI-DAQ portion of the program isn't really doing that much.

I am now going through the process of disabling parts of my program to see if anything lets it work for more than a few hours, but it takes a long time to test because it can take up to 8 or 9 hours to fail.  Oh the joys of debugging!

Thanks for any help.

-John

[Nicholas_B]

Hi John,

Have you tried any driver versions other than 7.5 or 8.3?  Try 8.0 (or another in between) to see if the device is recognized and installed properly.  In the meantime, your procedure for debugging your program sounds like the right way to go about it - that is what I would have recommended.  I will also set up a test machine to see if I can duplicate the install error. 

Regards,

Nicholas B, National Instruments

[JSA]

We have also tried 8.0 (on both machines) with the same results as 7.5.  8.3 and 8.3.1 are the only ones we've been able to get working.  Still testing various portions of the code to see if anything specific can reproduce it.