Amber Light on PXIe-8381

[icewind26]

Hi there,

For the past 2 months I have been using a PXIe-1084 chassis without any problems. The other day I came in to begin working and found that the PWR/LNK light on my PXIe-8381 board was a solid amber instead of the usual green. Through troubleshooting guides I found that it means the board does not think it is connected to the chassis, so I shut down my computer, removed all the other unnecessary slots on the chassis and have also removed and returned the PXIe-8381 and after restarting the chassis, I still had the amber light. I did find that the amber light stayed on until I turned on my computer upon which it turns green for a couple seconds and then goes back to amber and does not change. I have tried removing and returning the PCIe-8381 and that did not fix it either. I have no other express slots on my computer to try that board in. 

After doing all this, it does not seem likely to me that there is a hardware problem. The next  step I found would be to delete and re-install PXI Platform Services; however, on my system, it says that it will need to delete a lot more than just PXI Platform Services for this to go through.

I am asking if there are any other hardware solutions I am missing and also if deleting PXI Platform Services is the correct way to go. I got this idea from this troubleshooting guide (https://knowledge.ni.com/KnowledgeArticleDetails?id=kA03q000000x0MKCAY&l=en-US) because I do not see National Instruments SMBus Controller in Device Manager on my PC.

Thank you!

[santo_13]

Were there any updates on Windows or your laptop drivers that correlate with the issue time?

[Robert__R · Accepted solution]

Hi icewind26,

One correction: the amber light means that the cabled link is down. Without that link the SMBus controller won't be seen, so I'd leave the PXI Platform Services alone for a bit.

Because you see the light turn green initially (when turning on your PC) I'd suggest installing MXI-Express BIOS Compatibility (https://www.ni.com/en-us/support/downloads/drivers/download.mxi-express-bios-compatibility.html#3311...) and flipping the DIP switch on the PCIe card. There are some reset timing things during early boot that can break the cabled link and this changes the behavior enough to work around them. Note that the link LED will stay amber until the driver loads (sometime around the Windows login screen).

- Robert

[icewind26]

There have been no updates since this problem began.

[icewind26]

Hi Robert,

This worked! I am finally able to find it in MAX. Thank you so much! Is this a permanent work around or do you think this problem could come up again? I guess I am a little confused about what this installed program is doing. Thank you again!

[Robert__R]

Hi icewind26,

This is a permanent solution. The installed program is meant to work around a myriad of issues a BIOS might have -- a BIOS generally won't expect as much hardware "in" a slot as MXI enables, so there are frequently bugs.

Flipping the switch hides all the PXI(e) hardware from the BIOS, and the driver you installed enumerates the hardware instead. In this case there's something happening during boot that causes the cable to unlink, and we're avoiding that issue with this setup.

I'm glad it worked for you!

- Robert