sbRIO9637 not seen by NI MAX

[IvanRyger]

Dear colleagues,

I have been developping a system based on this particular board. Everything worked fine until I moved the system from one table to another. After this step I cannot connect to this board. In MAX I see as if it was disconnected. I tried to replace the ethernet cables, but without any effect. Both LEDs on the board ethernet connector side are lit. Right LED is green (100Mbit/s) and the left one (ACT/LINK) sometimes blinks. Status LED panel on the board has only the leftmost LED ON (POWER ON).

Do you know, what could potentially happen and how can I diagnose the fault?

[IvanRyger]

one additional thing, I tried to ping the board from Windows command line. Destination host was unreachable.

[SoarOnSon · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Have you tried connecting the sbRIO directly to an ethernet port on your PC? This step can help rule out a hardware issue if you can get a working connection with this method. This KnowledgeBase article provides steps to troubleshooting network connectivity.

Why Does My Networked Device Not Show Up In Measurement & Automation Explorer (MAX)?

Also, check out the "Connecting the sbRIO-9637 to the Host Computer" section in the user manual below for more network troubleshooting steps.

NI sbRIO-9637 User Manual - National Instruments

Josh

Applications Engineer

National Instruments

[IvanRyger]

Dear SoarOnSon

I went through the knowledgeBase article. After entering the safe mode, I was able to establish the communication with the board again.

Thank you for your help.

Ivan

[IvanRyger]

Dear colleagues, the problem with sbRIO has appeared once again. The board was not used for about two weeks. 

The board was connected to the secondary Ethernet controller on the PC through a switch. LEDs indicated that the connection was established.

Let me summarize my attempst:

1. I tried to ping it at the address 169.254.89.120, the console says again "destination host unreachable"

2. removed the ethernet switch between host PC and target, replaced by crossover cable.

2. NI MAX system troubleshooting tried too, did not find the target at the default address.

3. I tried to enter DHCP mode using method described here:

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/ABE4BC247E8AC9BC8625734E005CAB42

Do you have any Idea what I should try next?

[SoarOnSon]

Hi Ivan,

Does the device connect successfully when it is plugged directly into the primary ethernet adapter? The whitepaper below details how multiple network interface cards could behave when using NI hardware. Check out section 2. Guidelines for Configuring Multi-NIC System which describes how to setup a system with multiple NICs.

Best Practices for Using Multiple Network Interfaces (NICs) with NI Products

An easier method of connecting the sbRIO to the computer would be to connect a switch to the network, and connect your computer and the sbRIO to the switch. This would place the computer and the sbRIO on the same subnet.

Josh

Applications Engineer

National Instruments 

[IvanRyger]

Thank you for your reply. 

Due to security policy in our institute, I cannot connect the board to the primary Ethernet adapter using the same subnet as the local area network. 

However, from yesterday I got some news. Previously in the Network and Sharing Center in Windows 7 the secondary adapter indicated as if the network cable had been disconnected. However, the LEDs on the adapter itself were lit, but Windows did not recognize either the switch or the target board.

The computer was not rebooted yesterday. Nor the Ethernet switch was. Just the target board was disconnected from the power supply after few times and to my surprise, today it works and the Windows recognizes the connected target.

Is there a way to diagnose if the problem appears at the side of the target or host PC?

The subnet should be configured correctly. The target address is 169.254.89.120 and the settings of the Ethernet adapter at the side of host PC are following:

IP address 169.254.11.68 and subnet mask 255.255.0.0. Neither DNS server, nor default gateway was set.

So even if the NI board address is changed to default after reset, it should work.

[IvanRyger]

to my surprise, when I disabled and re-enabled the secondary controller on the host PC, the problem went away. 

I will take deeper look at that KnowledgeBase article that you provided to me.

Thank you.