Blue Screen (BSOD) while communicating with GPIB Instrument

[Quaker]

About the 'Wait (ms)' vs. 'Wait Until Next ms Multiple' discussion:

Could it be better to use the 'Time Delay' Express-VI located in the same pallette as the other two VIs?

cu

[JÞB]

Quaker,

With GPIB ( or other parrallel busses) I tend to prefer Async VISA calls.  It is a holdover from my LabVIEW 7.0 days and relates to some of the "interesting" behaviors that I mentionedin passing.  The later versions on NI software (VISA and LabVIEW) seem to make the sync/Async choice a matter of coding style for MOST applications.  Of course, read about and learn the differences!  But I will make no firm recomendation.

As to the timing,  Frankly- I use this VI exclusivley and avoid Wait(ms).vi.  It has some disadvantages if code optomization is a high priority but, it will predict a Windows mSec clock roll over and return at the correct time (according to the system timer)

[Quaker]

Jeff,

can you convert the VI to LabVIEW V8.5 please?

Thank you 

[JasonSmith]

So it seems like this thread has gone off on a tangent, but was anything ever found regarding the original blue screen? Was a crash dump ever generated that could be sent in?

-Jason S. 

[Quaker]

My new findings:

1) As described in the first message I'am sending different messages to the instrument (totally 4 of them). Now I tried the same experiment with fewer messages and observed, that there is no problem if i send only the "_PCS4\sREADING?\n" message. But if I send the "_PCS4\sREADING?\n" and the "_PCS4\sERR?\n" messages consecutively the computer will crash. Afterwards I tried only to send the "_PCS4\sERR?\n" only and the computer crashed too! So it seems to be a problem related to this message.

2) I tried the same program using the VIs from NI-488. The result is the same as with the VISA version.

3) I tried different types of waiting (using 'Wait Until Next ms Multiple' and/or using 'Wait(ms)'). The computer crashes anyway.

Jason,

there are some older Mini Dump Files created by other Blue Screens ("DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL (d1)"). The latest one is from the 23.7.2009 (then the problem didn't exist such intensely). I analyzed them with the Kernel Debugger (kd.exe) from Microsoft already. All these Files are indicating problems with the nimdsk.dll file. Which LabVIEW component is using this dll?

Unfortunately I couldn't update NI-VISA etc. so far because the computer is often used by other people. I will do it as soon as i can. Also I will study the documentation about the instrument in more detail. Perhaps I can find any specialities with the "_PCS4\sERR?\n" command.

Is there a PCI-GPIB card specific driver which I can update too?

Have a nice weekend.

[Quaker · Accepted solution]

I have some good news 

I installed NI-VISA V4.6 today, but this didn't solve my problem. But after I installed NI-488.2 V2.7.1 (the latest version too) my small application worked perfectly. I tried it only about 3 minutes, but the computer didn't crash.

What happened:

I observed that after the reboot (after the NI-488.2 installation) windows installed the PCI-GPIB card again. So I checked the new driver version in the device manager of windows. There I discovered that a new driver for the card itself was installed (V2.7.0.49152, Date 28.1.2009, WHQL certified). The previous faulty driver was V2.5.2., 1.1.2007.

Conclusion: I think the new driver for the PCI-GPIB card solved my problem.

I will do some more (longer) tests and let you know if the problem is solved definitifely...

Bye

[Quaker]

After some additional tests, the problem seems to be fixed by installation of the latest NI-488.2 driver (see post above).

Thank you all for your help.