Application to test fiber optic boards between PCI/PXI-8335 communication

[Eric.H]

I am setting up a fiber optic connection between my workstation and PXI chassis with 8335 cards.

My workstation has WIN 7 64 bits OS with current PCI-8335 card installed.

Per recommendation by NI rep few days back, we installed driver “PXI Platform services 15.1” on my workstation.

After installation, windows does not recognize the card showing ”windows does not have a driver associated with your device” from Device Manager.

We believe it is a driver issue, but not sure if this is a Windows 7 issue or a 64 bit causing it and would appreciate any feedback or suggestions. 

However, we noticed that both LED indicators (PWR & LNK) on both cards turn green which means to me that power is up and link established.

I’ve read some discussions mentioned those fiber optic card may not need a driver.

I just wonder if there is an application able to run the test to proof the communication between those two 8335 cards works?

Without testing it, I would have to spend more time on digging the right driver for those obsolete MXI-3 cards.

Thank you in advance for your help.

[Robert__R]

Eric,

One of the main reasons the MXI-3 cards went obsolete was that Windows Vista started requiring a particular configuration bit to be writable, and it was stuck at 0.  The result was that Vista would put a yellow bang on the MXI-3 bridge (disable it).  The subsequent product (MXI-4) fixed that but used an incompatible cable protocol (in order to add error correction), so MXI-3 went obsolete.

I assume newer Windows versions will have the same issue.  The MXI-3 bridge itself is a transparent PCI-PCI bridge, which means it doesn't need a driver to be recognized and configured.  There was an optimization utility that tweaked a few things, but it wasn't technically a MXI-3 driver.  Anyway, if you're getting a yellow bang on a PCI-PCI bridge in device manager then it's almost certainly game over for that configuration.

If you need a fiber optic connection to the PXI-1010 chassis then your best bet is the PCI-8366 and PXI-8368.  If you don't need an optical connection then a PCIe-8361 and PXI-8360 will be better (there's also a PCI-8361, but I'd go with the PCIe version unless there's a compelling reason not to).

- Robert