2 or more PCI cards to run the Labview program 5.1

[PvW]

Hi There,

I need to know If I can add another PCI card in the computer (which controls the Labview 5.1 program)  to control my test rack with 22

instruments. In the rack is a computer with 2 PCI cards ( I have 24 GPIB units here ) and in order to do run my calibration program I might

need to add another PCI card on my own computer. Do I need to add another driver or other software for my Labview 5.1 or will the

Labview program "accept" the second PCI card and run as normal?

At the moment I run the program with 4 Keithley instruments but I have to expand to 9 Keithley instruments attached to Keithley switchers.

Kind Regards

PVW

[YatinM]

PVW

Which PCI card are you planning to use?

If they are GPIB then they should work fine with LabVIEW 5.1, as long as you haven’t hard coded the resource references (i.e GPIB0::2::INSTR), into your application, as these will be different on the new board.

More details on the PCI card being used would be a great help,

Regards

YatinM

NI UK

[PvW]

Yatin,

I'm using NI PCI -GPIB 188513C.

 I'm running XP on the system. The first card is working as normal but will adding a second card cause problems, 2 cards in the PC operating the same labview program at the same time.

Paul

[hannahW]

Hi,

Adding a second card shouldn't cause any problems, as long as the card already in the system is an NI PCI GPIB card? If so then they'll both be using the same driver, and everything should install ok.

If this is the case, then the only consideration you need to make will be how you address each of the instruments. In your LabVIEW application, do you specify these on the front panel or are they hardcoded into the block diagram? You will need to make sure that the references you use to each resource is specified correctly, as the new GPIB board will have a different enumeration from the one already in the system.

If you are not sure, then if you can post the source code, I'll have a look at this for you.

Regards
Hannah
NIUK & Ireland

[YatinM]

Hi Paul

Just wondering how you getting on, not heard back from you so i presume that adding another PCI card was not a problem

Im happy to help if you have anymore questions

Regards

YatinM

NIUK

[PvW]

Hi Yatin,

I was unable to work on the system due to other commitments in the last couple of days but in the last hour i've had a look and it looks good. I had to reinstal the card and it worked. I believe that there must have been a error during the first installation process. The only weird thing is that the pc booted up as in windows 2000 instead of XP but that must be something else. I can't see the two thing being related.

Thank for your reply.

PAul.

[YatinM]

Hi Paul

Good to hear that everything seems to be working fine. I can't think of a reason why it would boot up in Windows 2000 instead of XP, have you tried booting it again? does it boot up windows 2000 again? personally i cant see the two being related either.

let me know how things progress,

Regards

YatinM

NIUK

Applications Engineer