with a agilent GPIB card the read from VISA returns an error

[amos]

I installed a gpib card of agilent (82341C) i went through the instructions on the agilent site and i got to the point that NI-VISA recognized the card and my instrument (HP33120A). the problem is that when i try the command write to VISA i get an OK from the VI and an error signal shows on the instrument. and when i try read from VISA i get an error.
any ideas?
thanks
amos

[Dennis_Knutson]

Are you sending the command from MAX? What is the command and what is the error code from the VISA Read? Have you tried the instrument driver from NI (see here)?

[amos]

i am working the whole time with the NI driver.
the problem is more fundemental.
in labview i isolated the "write to visa" and "read from visa" VI's and yet, although i got an OK from the "error out" of "write to visa" ,on the panel of the function generator of HP an error sign showed.
when trying "read from VISA" an error code comes out of the "error out" (i don't have it infront of me right now ,but it somethiong like -17......).
i also tried to open a VISA session from MAX and i get all sorts of outputs (something like BBB00A3) from different commands.
by the way i do not now if it's important but the GPIB appears in MAX as a big yellow question mark(i do not know if this is normal).
thanks
amos

[Dennis_Knutson]

I'm not sure what Agilent's instructions are. I think you have to have the Tulip passport turned on. Check in MAX>Tools>NI-VISA>Options and select Passports under My System>VISA Settings. There have also been numerous postings about using Agilent GPIB cards with LabVIEW. You might try doing a search to see if any those can help.

[Salvador_Santolucito]

Amos,

Having the GPIB show up in MAX as a question mark is definately a problem. Here is something to try that might fix it. Go into MAX and delete the GPIB interface. Then open up you Windows device manager (from control panel>>system>>hardware>>device manager). From the device manager, delete your GPIB device. Then restart your computer so Windows can recognize the device and install the drivers for it. This is all assuming that you already have the most recent version of NI488.2 installed. If not, you can get it here:

http://search.ni.com/query.html?col=alldocs&qp=+%2BProductLine%3A25+%2BDownloadType%3A%22NI-488.2+%28Win32%29%22+%2BVersion%3A%222.2%22+%2Bcontentformat%3Asoftwarelib&layout=SoftLib