NI serial devices have stopped working

[William7]

All of my NI serial devices have stopped working suddenly. The PCMCIA 485 card (tried 3 cards), the USB to 485 2 port box, the USB to 232 4 port box, and a new USB to 485 cable - all have problems loading the serial drivers. I get the same error message that the Data is Invalid? 

I was using NI serial 3.3 and all devices were Working fine earlier this year. I tried reloading 3.3, then 3.4 then 3.5, then 3.2, then back to 3.3. No NI serial drivers will load for these devices. Other serial devices and ports work just fine. System is Windows XP Professional, version 2002, SP3. Using Automation Explorer 4.6.2.

[John_M.]

Hi William7,

When are you seeing the Data is Invalid error message? Perhaps posting a screenshot of the error would be helpful for us. Also, are you aware of any changes that have taken place since the drivers previously worked? For example, do you know if this happened after a Windows Update was installed? Also, how did you realize that the drivers were no longer working? Did the cards just stop showing up in MAX, or what happened?

Thanks!

John M

[William7]

I attached a pic of the error message from the device manager. MAX cannot establish Visa communication. Second pic. Same results with all my NI serial devices. Disabling and Enabling the ports does not work. Max does show that NI serial 3.3 is available.

The only change that I am aware of is that I used a different Serial card in the PCMCIA slot. A Socket serial RS232 card. Which worked fine. I then switched back to the NI serial 485 card the following week. It did not work. After that the other NI devices stopped functioning also. However I think some were working intermittently for a while. I have ordered a Quatech DSP-200/300 which does work and communicates with the Fieldpoint hardware. So I am back in business but not with any NI serial port devices.  

[fchandur]

William7:

 The devices that you are trying to communicate with through LabView, can they receive instructions from the computer? If so, I would go under Accessories->Communication->Hyperterminal. Here you would be asked to setup the serial device you would like to communicate with, once you have done so you may send commands such as "ver" whose output should come out to be the version of the software installed on the hardware. This suggestion will work if you are using sophisticated hardware that come with their own set of instructions.

 Another thing to try out would be to go into LabView->Blank block diagram->functions palette ->instrument i/o->serial->configure. You may then configure the port, then link the resource name out to visa close resource name in. This should , if there is any justice in the world, close the serial port. After this other applications such as Hyperterminal would be able to connect to these serial devices.

 Currently I am using HAPHD2000 which is a serial device (RS232). I am using serial visa, visa read/write to communicate with it. Though at one point, I too received the error message you posted. It seemed to go away by simply restarting the computer. But you must have already tried that without success? 

 If all this results in to faliure, under NI example finder, go to Hardware input and output->Serial->Basic serial write and read.vi, try running this vi at least twice.

[John_M.]

Hi William7,

This is not something that I have seen before, but in searching online, I found this thread on TechSpot.com which addresses a very similar question. I do not know if this will work for you or not, but it is a resource you may be interested in. If you decide to try it, be sure to backup your registry first, and as always, take great care when editing your registry.

John M