different GPIB boards for winNT/9x/2000/etc??

[Paul F. Prew]

I have experienced trouble in the past configuring GPIB cards for windows
platforms. Especially, Win NT. (4.0)
It looks as though there are DIFFERENT GPIB boards for differing operating
systems? NT, me/9x, 2000/xp etc.
National Instruments identifies these boards with different part numbers.
(e.g. PCI-GPIB for win NT is 777073-01 & PCI-GPIB for win me/9x is 777158-01)
The software seems to be universal (at least for windows) (ni part# 777175-01)
As I deal with several operating platforms, this leads to an uncomfortably
large matrix.
To make things worse...the part numbers for these boards (e.g. 777073-01) do
NOT appear on the board!
Instead, an assembly number (e.g. 183617C-01) appears on the board.

My question(s)
Are these
boards REALLY different?

Can they be (generaly) interchanged between machines running different
operating systems?

Are there any problematic combinations (e.g. plug & play boards in win NT
machines)?

Is there a document which can be used as a cross reference table to which links
assembly numbers like 183617C-01 to part numbers like 777158-01?

thanks
Paul F. Prew
Texas Instruments Inc.
34 Forest St. MS 12-32
Attleboro, MA 02703
(508) 236-3499

[Dennis_Knutson]

I've always thought that the boards were the same. We buy only the PCI board and use them in whatever system needs one. We have mostly WinNT but still have a few Win95 and Win98 systems and I don't think we've ever had a problem as long as the right software is installed.

[Randy Solomonson]

Hello-

The boards themselves are the same. However, the driver and other documentation that ships with the board is different according to the catalog number. When the driver is installed, it should detect the current version of Windows and install the proper files.

One of the most common problems in installing a GPIB card is allowing Windows to install what I call a "dummy driver" for the card. If the card is inserted before the driver is installed, Windows will detect it as something like "Unknown Device". Then, Windows doesn't know when the actual driver is installed. Even when going through Device Manager, and reattaching the driver, the wizard must explicitly be told to search in windows\inf for the proper file. If this does not happen the
reattach will fail.

Randy Solomonson
Application Engineer
National Instruments

[Wilbur S.]

Paul,

I checked the material list of the two part numbers you listed above (777073-01 and 777158-01), and the contents shipped are identical. Sometimes the literature shipped with a specific product may vary depending on which OS or platform you are using, but in this case, they are the same.

There currently isn't a cross reference table available on the web that resolves assembly numbers to the part numbers. However, what would probably be more useful for your situation is to reference the table found at http://www.ni.com/support/gpib/versions.htm and compare it with the name printed on the board. For example, if the name of your board is "PCI-GPIB", you can look at the column to see which operating systems are supported and the driver version you need
for the board. This page is part of the GPIB support pages found at http://www.ni.com/support.

I hope this extra piece of information helps!

Wilbur Shen
Web Support and Operations
National Instruments