nidevldu crashes PC

[Lincoln F]

I have had Labview 7.1 and DAQmx 7.4 installed and running well for some months on my WinXP (SP2) PC.  Recently (perhaps after some Windows update?), the machine crashes every time it boots up, and I have linked this with the service nidevldu.

The moment nidevldu starts, the PC locks up completely.  If I set this service as manual start, the machine boots normally (but of course loses Labview functionality).  As soon as I manually start nidevldu, the crash occurs, resulting in complete loss of all functions - screen mouse, keyboard etc all freeze.

Where to go??

[SamboNI]

Hi Lincoln,

I'm not sure what caused this exactly, but the course of action that I would recommend would be to download the most current DAQmx driver (8.5) from our website. This version still has LabVIEW 7.1 support, and may clear up this issue!

Give that a try and let us know how it goes.

Best regards,

[Lincoln F]

Thanks Sam.  I have installed DAQmx 8.5, and very similar symptoms persist.  If I get in quickly after bootup and suspend the nipalsm.exe process that is related to the NI device loader, or prevent the NI device loader service from starting, there is no crash.  If I leave the nipalsm.exe process running, or resume it after suspending, the PC inevitably crashes soon afterward.  I cannot by any combination of measures get the machine up any running with full Labview functionality.

Are there any other diagnostic or remedial measures you can suggest?  Maybe a complete re-install of LV 7.1?

[SamboNI]

Hi Lincoln,

I am seeing in our internal KnowledgeBase that in the past, a repair (or complete uninstall and reinstall) of LabVIEW has resolved this issue, so please try these two operations (repair first, and then if that does not help, then the uninstall/reinstall).

Best regards,

[Lincoln F]

Hi Sam

I have gone through both repair and reinstall of LV and DAQmx, more than once, without fixing this problem.  At one point, I did get the PC stable, back with DAQmx 7.4, but found that LV and MAX were not recognising the card (PCI-6221) properly.  Once, it had a little cross by it in MAX, once it looked OK in MAX but would not respond to Reset or Self Test.  Shifted the card to another PCI slot, and then couldn't get MAX to see it at all, though Windows recognised it ok and installed the driver.

Suspecting a hardware fault, either in the card or the PC, I moved the card to another PC which had LV 7.1 & DAQmx 7.4 installed with only a simulated DAQ device.  The problem shifted with the card, ie uncontrollable crashes on the second PC when the device driver loaded and tried to talk to the card.  Took the card out again, and now MAX won't run on this PC!  I assume it still thinks the card should be there and tries to talk to it.  It doesn't crash the PC, just gives a message "NIMax has encountered a problem and needs to close.  We are sorry for the inconvenience."  I guess I can fix this with a DAQmx repair or reinstall on this machine.

I conclude that the DAQ card is faulty, and will return it to the supplier for replacement.

If my analysis is correct, I think one could also conclude that the NI software that talks to DAQ cards is not handling this sort of exception particularly well.  If I were in NI driver development team, I might think that it would be worth getting hold of this card and replicating the problem in-house, because it seems to be capable of causing a lot of frustration.

Regards
Lincoln

[SamboNI]

Hi Lincoln,

It certainly appears that the DAQ card itself is what is causing the issue, especially if installing on a 2nd PC resulted in the same symptoms.

As far as what was happening when you changed PCI slots, if Windows sees the card and MAX does not, you could try deleting it from the Windows Device Manager and then restarting, thus causing a reinstallation of the driver specific to the DAQ device... but the fact that moving the card to another computer entirely didn't change things makes it pretty clear that something is going on with the card.

I certainly agree that the driver should handle this more effectively - might you be able to take a screenshot of any crash error messages you are getting? Or do you not even get any and it is just a hard freeze?

[Lincoln F]

Sam,

It was a totally sudden and hard freeze, with no warnings or messages.  Only the PC reset button would do anything.

I have now returned the card to our local NI Alliance provider, for warranty replacement.

Thanks for your help.

Lincoln

[ratem]

Hi,

I am having exactly the same problem, but with a quite different configuration. I have a PXI 6052E (I/O), SCXI 1129 (Switch), CPU PXI 8176, running Red Hat Enterprise kernel 2.6.9-42, LabView 8.0, DAQMX 8.0. When I start the machine, imediatly during the nidevldu starting the machine freezes without warning!
We have already installed and re-installed etc, etc.
Also, when NI is going to release a newer DAQMX????

Thanks in advance,

Rogerio

[Lincoln F]

Hi Rogerio

In my case, the problem was traced to a faulty PCI DAQ card.  It did exactly the same thing in another PC, so all the re-installs in the world would not fix it.  NI replaced the card under warranty.

Cheers, Lincoln

[Mark_E]

Hi Rogerio,

Was this setup working before and this is the first time you’ve seen this behavior? Does this happen on another computer? This may not be a faulty card, given your setup is completely different.

To know what hardware is supported with what version of the driver and what operating system, see the Data Acquisition (DAQ) Installation/Configuration Troubleshooter

It appears that DAQmx 8.0 is the last version to support Linux systems. Its readme can be found by visiting www.ni.com/support, clicking on “Drivers and Updates” and searching for DAQmx. It contains compatibility information as well as Frequently Asked Questions and their answers.

The DAQmx readme states that NI-DAQmx 8.0 for Linux supports the following Distributions:

• Mandrakelinux 10.1 Official and Mandriva Linux 2006
• SUSE LINUX Professional 9.2 and 9.3
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS 3

However, there may be something in the post NIDAQmx on Fedora Core 5 How-To that could help you. There you will also find an explanation as to why we don’t update DAQmx more often.

Best regards,