PXI first use, unable to configure/boot safe mode or RT

[Elias579]

Hi all,

I am new to PXI controllers, i am having a few issues with a PXI controller in my university which i intend to use for my fyp project.

So we are using a PXI 1042Q chassis with a PXI 8106 embedded controller.

We started this controller for the first time and updated windows xp, we also removed labview 8.6 that came with it and installed labview 2010 with all the available drivers, softwares and liscenses..

When we start windows XP on the PXI system we can see the PXI chassis and controller identified in MAX but labview cannot find them when creating a project.. My first question concerns the reason why labview cannot identify PXI targets in a project?, could it be a missing liscence (for instance RT liscence for PXI)? or an improperly installed driver? How to check if RT liscence is missing or needed?

Due to the first problem, we tried to control the PXI remotelty from another desktop host PC where we found more problems.

1/ Can we make a connection in order to download a project from the host PC to the PXI via ETHERNET (without MXI cards) ?

2/ We tried to make the connection using ethernet but we couldnt configure the IP; when we switch to safe mode to configure, the pxi gives the following texts on screen " system error kernel 446610 LFS error not a dos disk pc-dskinit " and the system remains unconfigured with the 0.0.0.0 IP due to the failure to boot, MAX on the host PC sees the PXI as a 0.0.0.0 and changing the IP is not possible also.

To cure this issue and help the system boot, we created a desktop PC utility USB Drive in MAX (on the host PC), configured the boot devices priority on PXI and booted the PXI from the USB drive.  we entered safe mode and the pxi took an IP automatically and then it displayed that the software is not present... The problem is that when we tried to install the software on the pxi using MAX on the host PC (which now sees the PXI) we got disconnected.. 

Note that firewall is off, the host pc has an ip in range with the one generated by the pxi, on the same subnet and has windows 7..So why are we loosing the connection in MAX after 30 seconds,, when we try to install the software on the pxi?

thank you in advance for your help.

Elias Saleh.

[Peter_L]

Dear Elias579,

Welcome you to the NI Forums!

There are basically three ways a PXI system can by characterised by the OS:
Real-Time OS running on the PXI makes it an RT Target, which then can be reached from the network by a host PC for example

"regular" Windows running on the PXI makes it a simple industrial PC, which has no real-time qualities. In this case you cannot add the controller to your project, since you are actually on the target, and whatever VIs you crate are actually on the platform already!
Hybrid systems (not all controllers are compatible with this) can run in such a way that one core runs regular Windows and an other runs an RT OS, which can communicate with each other.

Your problem is either
1.) You installed a simple windows, in which case you wont add any targets to your project since you are running every VIs on the target. The chassis works exactly like a PCIe bus slot extender, so the cards inside are the ones that matter. For example if you have a programmable FPGA PXI card, and you have LABVIEW REAL-TIME and NI-RIO driver installed, you will be able to add the card within the chassis to your project.

2.) You are just missing a driver. Since you do not have an RT OS on the PXI, you might need a suitable DAQmx for you cards. 

Please to help me have more vision of your problem try to describe what cards are you using and what is actually you would like to do.

For debugging you issue, these documents might help:
http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/24D16468DE8838B2862568E200746D7E

https://decibel.ni.com/content/docs/DOC-16189

**EDIT:
one more thing, if you are using a regular Windows PXI, you should not seek to connect to it as an RT Target. You might try to use Remote Desktop from an another PC though.

Looking forwards to help you solve your issue,

Peter