PXI-1033 not detected until pc is restarted

[G1L]

We have a NI PXI-1033 Chassis with a PXI-5114, PXI-4072, and PXI-6221, at fist it failed to recognize and install the drivers for the boards. Looking in the knowledge base, i tried the workaround by disabling de PCIe mode "bcdedit /set pciexpress forcedisable" command, and restarted the pc. Then the system recognized and installed the drivers for all the hardware. 

Turned off the PXI system  at the end of the shift. The next day, after turning on the system, it didn't recognized the hardware, reverted the changes using "bcdedit /set pciexpress default", then restarted the pc. Again the hardware were recognized.

I tried changing the configuration on the PC BIOS, with no luck. The PC is an ACP-4000 from Advantech. We have to restart de PC after a cold start, so it could recognize the hardware and load the drivers.

Is this normal?

Regards

[Robert__R]

The PXI-1033 needs to be on when you power up your PC, and it needs to remain powered until you shut down your PC.  The PXI-1033 is an extension of the PCI bus in your computer, which means the computer expects it always to be present.

It's similar to a PCIe card in your computer -- you don't plug a card in while the PC is running and expect it to work.  The underlying PCIe technology has many advantages (bandwidth, latency, driver compatibility), but this is one of the drawbacks -- it needs to be present when the computer boots.

- Robert

[G1L]

I'm aware of that. Maybe i wasn't clear on my post, but the PXI is always turned on before the PC. No matter what, the PC don't recognize the hardware, as if the bus were innactive. The PC has to be restarted in order to recognize the PXI.

It's possible that the culprit is the PC BIOS, some timing with the PCIe bus enabling. There is some kind of delay, we aren't able to control. Once the PCIe bus es enabled, the PC is able to recognize the PXI hardware when it is restarded.

Regards.

[Robert__R]

What OS are you running?  Windows 8 and 10 have a "fast startup" where they will save the kernal state on shutdown and restore it on boot.  This can cause problems with newly-added hardware (or anything the hardware wasn't present in the last session).  Restart always does a full reboot, but a shutdown and power cycle does a fast boot.  If you run "shutdown /s /full / t 0" to shut the machine down it will do a full restart on the next boot.  There are ways to permanently disable fast startup if you find that's the issue.

Otherwise I don't know what's going on.  In a failing state you could open device manager, choose "view devices by connection", then "scan for hardware changes" and see what happens.  It may find some more bridges, though it probably won't have resources allocated to start them.

- Robert

[G1L · Accepted solution]

The PC is running Windows 7 Pro. I searched on google for similar problems, where i found one where somebody says the culprit is the chipset in the motherboard does not give the PCIe card the delay it needs on a cold boot in order to be recognized. A restart does give the needed delay and the card works.

[AntonTokarskyi]

Hi G1L,

Just curious to know how the issue was resolved at the end, if was. 

It seems, I have the similar problem in two systems (motheboard PCIE-Q670-R20 with backplane NBP-14210 and PXI-1044 in both systems).

Any suggestion / recomendations will be realy apreciated.

Thanks.

Regards,

Anton 

[G1L]

Hi Anton,

There has passed some time since then, i don't remember if it was because the connector in the PXI or the PCIe card in the PC that wasn't properly seated.

Once the problem was corrected, the system worked correctly. The PXI turned on with the PC, and all the hardware were recognized.

I could suggest to double check all the connections.

Regards.

[AntonTokarskyi]

Probably, but I have moved the controller between PCI slots and on all of them had the similar behavior.

I will double check the connections with additional attention and hopefully it will solve the issue.

Many thanks for reply.

Regards,

Anton