6674T not detected when trying to sinc 2 chassis (both with a 6674T)

[jser]

Hi all, I have a problem when I try to sync the 2 PXIe 1085 chassis. Both of them are equal, they have a timing card 6674T in the slot 10 and 3x5645R (ports 2, 6 and 11). Each chassis works fine individually, so I can for example tx 1 and rx 2 (in labview 2014), but when I try to connect both chassis the timing cards are not recognized by windows (Windows 7 64 bit ) and I cant access anything. I have tried several combinations of wiring the Clock-out to Clock-in, PFI 0 to PFI 0, PFI 1 to PFI1 (this 3 at the same time). But none of the combinations worked. Just for clarification, when I work with 1 chassis I switch on first the chassis, then the PC and the timing card and the other slots are detected. But when I wire 2 chassis, turn them on and then the PC , then nothing is recognized Any advice is welcomed. Have a nice day jser

[jser]

Update: I tried in star and chain configuration but not succeed. I am running out of ideas 😞

[Captain_K]

Hi Jser,

What MXI cards are you using to connect the two chassis together and what MXI cards are you using to connect the chassis to the PC? Also, can you post screen shots of how both chassis look in MAX? I want to try and understand the whole hardware setup and what you mean by the timing cards not being recognized by Windows (does the second chassis show up in MAX?Does the hardware show up in Device Manager?)

Also, when you say sync the two chassis, are you trying to PLL the chassis 10MHz clock or sync outputs from your modules? If you just need to sync the chassis clock, you can connect the 10 MHz REF OUT line from one chassis to the 10 MHz REF IN line of the other. Simply making this connection will sync the chassis clocks.

[jser]

Hello Captain_K, first of all, thank you for your answer. Both chassis have in slot 1 the card PXI8381 and in the slot 18 the PXI8384. I send some screenshots to clarify what appears in MAX and in the device manager. Another info: Yesterday I connected both chassis directly to the PC (in star configuration, no longer in chain) and I can at most work with one of the chassis, the second chassis is still not detected and the second timing card as well. If I connect only 1 chassis to any of the chassis to the pc it works fine, but never both at the same time in any configuration. Thanks again Kind regards jser

[jser]

Another screenshot

[Captain_K · Accepted solution]

Since only one chassis is showing up at a time, this may be a MXI compatibility issue, meaning you computer's BIOS can't enumerate all of the PCIe endpoints in the system. The PCIe Bus range varies from computer to computer and is dependent on the motherboards BIOS. 

What type of computer are you using? Does the BIOS have an option to extend the PCIe bus range?

Here's link to one of our KnowledgeBases. There's an executable at the bottom that you can run and it'll show the range in hex. Can you run this and post another screen shot?

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/BF84B75E08D2A7708625763B00670007

You may want to also try installing the MXI-Express BIOS Compatibility Software linked below. The may help the computer enumerate the second chassis. There are instructions in the readme file that need to be followed.

http://www.ni.com/download/mxi-express-bios-compatibility-software-1.5/3764/en/

For more information on MXI troubleshooting, you can follow our MXI Compatibility and Connectivity Troubleshooting Guide.

http://www.ni.com/tutorial/53268/en/

[jser]

Hello Matt,

I have been trying but still not working. After installing the BIOS software I could detect one full chassis (as before) plus one of the transceivers of the other chassis (it was called RIO4 in MAX). But still not posible to do anything with both chassis at the same time.

In the device manager, we had previously a lot of elements with the yellow exclamation, but now only a few with the error code 31,

not sure how to proceed now

[Captain_K]

Were you able to run the MXIeBusDetect from the following link?

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/BF84B75E08D2A7708625763B00670007

This should tell us how big the PCIe bus is on the computer. In the end, though, this may just be a limitation of the computer's motherboard and BIOS. 

I would suggest setting up the chassis's in a star configuration and removing all the modules. See if you can get just the chassis to show up in MAX. If we can, start adding the modules in one-by-one to see how far we can get before they stop showing up. Also, with the star configuration, we shouldn't need the 8384 installed. Adding extra MXI cards to the chassis ends up reserving extra buses, so if we remove, there should be a couple extra buses available.

[jser]

I got this

[Captain_K]

Thanks for the screen shot. This confirms that we're running out of PCI buses on your computer as your computer only has 62 buses (x3e). Each chassis and MXI card takes up a certain amount of PCI Bus resources. With two 1085 chassis and the associated MXI cards, we're going over the 62 bus limit, meaning your computer isn't able to enumerate the whole system. Unfortunately, this isn't anything we at NI can change. 

Going forward, I would try updating the computer's BIOS and check the BIOS menus to see if there's an option to extend the PCI bus limit. In the end, you may need to try to setup with a different style of computer. Something with a different motherboard.