sbRIO 9637- lost ethernet connection after restart

[IvanRyger]

Dear colleagues. I have sbRIO card connected via straight FTP cable to the secondary ethernet controller on host PC (windows 7). The PC is equipped by gigabit ethernet card that detects the straight/cross cable. I realized that if don't connect the device to the ethernet prior to swithing on the host PC, then I loose connection between PC and sbRIO. In the PC control panel I see as if the ethernet cable was unplugged (red cross) and I cannot either ping the RIO. Then each time I must restart the host PC to keep detecting it. The cable is OK, I tried also crossed cable, with no result. Both green LEDs on RIO board light all the time.

Can you please help me?

Ivan

[MatthewL.]

Ivan,

It does appear to be weird behavior that sbRIO has to be plugged in and then the PC must be turned on. Have you already installed software on the sbRIO and  configured the sbRIO? Also, what version of NI CompactRIO Device Drivers are installed? Just to inform you that the sbRIO-9637 attempts to

initiate a DHCP network connection at powerup. So the IP you tried to ping may have changed.

Matthew

[IvanRyger]

Matthew, 

the sbRIO device is normally working. I can load a custom program (compiled bitfile from VI). So I think that all the needed software is running. However, If I switch it off temporarily and again reconnect (e.g. if I am connecting some hardware on RIO connectors), then the windows system  shows as if the network cable was unplugged. If I place an ethernet switch between host PC and RIO, I don't encounter this problem. I see that it takes a little time to connect after reset (probably due to mentioned DHCP attempt), but after that it works fine. Only if I want to connect the device directly, the ethernet connection is lost after hard reset.

[MatthewL.]

Ivan,

If you set the IP to static, do you still see this issue? Also, referring to your original post one you plug in the secondary cable and restart your PC are you able to detect and use both cables plugged into the sbRIO?

[IvanRyger]

Matthew, 

I am using static IP. BTW I can check the secondary ethernet controller on host PC and we will see the result.

[MatthewL.]

Ivan,

You might want to verify that the IP is not changing and that nothing weird is happening when plug in the second Ethernet port after you restart the PC

[johnoc]

You may want to take a look at the ni-rt.ini file on the board through FTP. My IP address disappeard from the file so the board defaulted to IP address: 169.254.25.118. I changed the IP of my secondary NIC card to 169.254.18.1 and went in through FTP and found the ni-rt.ini had been corrupted. This was a sbRIO-9636, but as I understand it the 9637 uses the ni-rt.ini file even thought it uses NI Linux Real-time. (My 9636 uses VxWorks).

I hope this helps.

[IvanRyger]

Matthew, just to summarize my last attempts:

The secondary ethernet controller is not a gigabit link, so I need to use the crossed cable. if I do so, windows shows that the cable is plugged, but I still cannot ping the device. System tells me that the destination host is not reachable. 

If I use the secondary adapter, it shows that the cable is unplugged and writes that destination host is not reachable.

However, If I place a gigabit switch between RIO and PC, I get rid of these problems and everything goes fine. Both green and yellow LEDS on RIO ethernet connector are on.

[MatthewL.]

IvanRyger,

That is interesting that the switch allows it to run as expected. Did it appear that the IP was being changed when you plugged in the second Ethernet without a switch? Also, is the switch a viable solution? As far as the LEDs on the Ethernet connector go, they indicate  a connection has been made and that that connection speed is 1,000 Mbit/s.