GigE Vision high performance driver cannot be installed - Code 10

[Gil B]

I have a Labview application working with Dalsa Spyder 3 GigE Vision compliant camera (SG-11-01K80).

It seems the NIC or the CPU cannot withstand the high data rate (~63Mpix/s), and I'm missing packets/lines. So, I tried install the NI High Performance driver.

 

When opening the NIC in the device manager, I found two network adapters:

(1)    Intel® 82567LM Gigabit Network Connection

(2)    Intel® 82567LM Gigabit Network Connection – Ethernet Bus Filter Miniport

 The second one belong the 'Pleora Technologies', and was installed as part of the Spyder 3 control software (Dalsa QuickCam GEV). This driver name is 'eBUS Universal Driver'.

 

I have tried to install the high performance driver on each of the above adapters.

It hasn't worked.

In both cases the device status showed: "The device cannot start. (Code 10)", with yellow exclamation mark.

 The computer is Lenovo laptop T500, dual core, The NI software is IMAQdx 3.2.  I will appreciate any help on this issue. Thanks,Gil

[Gil B]

Please find below some more details and clarifications:

1. Currently, the labview application is working, but with missed packets
2. While working, the two CPU's are at 50% capacity
3. The Labview version is 8.6.1
4. After installing NI high performance driver, the Labview application don't works at all
5. The Laptop operation system is Window XP 32bit

Thanks,

Gil

[wbadry]

Can you check the memory usage(physical not virtual)?

[BlueCheese]

Jons,

The Intel 82567 *should* be able to handle full-rate communication regardless of which driver you are using. Unfortunately, our High Performance Driver does not yet fully support this chip and so you shouldn't be able to install it. I believe you must have had to force the driver to install because its INF does not have it listed. We will likely add full support for this chip in a future release.

For the time being though, you should be able to get it acquiring at full rate with the Intel driver. Here are some things you may be able to try:

-Remove the eBUS Universal driver. This sits between the Intel driver and IMAQdx and could possible add some extra overhead and limit throughput for IMAQdx.

-The 82567 has a smaller on-chip buffer than some of its plug-in variants and it is set by default to have the rx/tx split of that buffer to be heavily geared towards tx traffic. The default size is too small for optimal reception of jumbo frames. You'll likely want to reduce the packet size used to 4K or below to help it out. It seems backwards, but due to the design of the hardware it can receive faster this way. With the High Performance Driver we adjust the buffer thresholds automatically to allow typical GigE Vision jumbo frame reception to be optimal. The Intel driver does not expose any way to change this.

-Change the number of RX descriptors used by the Intel driver to a higher number. This might help prevent the hardware from having to drop frames.

Hope this helps,
Eric 

[Gil B]

Hi Eric,

Thank you for the useful information:

1. You are right - I did 'forced' the driver to be installed, as its INF hasn't been listed.
2. Is there a timeline for adding 82567LM support? This Chipset found in all Lenovo new laptops (X200, X301, R400, T400, T500, W500, W700)
3. I will try the three suggested actions. Meanwhile, I have reduced the peak data rate at factor of 2, to ~32Mpix/s, and its looks like the application runs fine.

Unfortunately, another unsolved issue has rise (with same setup):

After reducing the data-rate, its looks like everything works (i.e. No missed packages), but I had some mis-synchronization issues (with my illumination). In order to solve that, I changed few of the Dalsa camera attributes at MAX -  and from that point and on, nothing works anymore:

1. When I tried to save the configuration in MAX, I got a message of 'Bad attribute' (but, without indication which attribute is wrong). Later on, after few steps I did to recover from this, I start getting the message 'Timeout error', and again, I couldn't grab.
2. I tried many actions to fix it:  Return to original attributes via MAX, Change directly the camera ICD file, replace the ICD file by other ICD files which worked on other computer, delete 'Data' folder and all its subsidiaries (including ICD and XML files - under Documents and settings/all users..National instruments...), uninstall and reinstall IMAQdx, reset the camera, set camera attributes to factory settings - Nothing helped. I couldn't grab images with MAX or Labview anymore.
3. Nevertheless - the Dalsa software 'QuickCam GEV' still working well, and I can grab images and change setting with no problems (of course, I need to close QuickCam GEV when MAX is working, and vice versa)
4. Its looks like the MAX is taking the camera attributes from somewhere else in the computer, and not from the camera ICD file under 'Documents and settings'. Thats since after I have deleted the data folder, and after setting the camera to factory settings, the MAX still 'knew' some of previous settings, like - Frame size, line rate, exposure time, exposure mode... - I couldn't find any place in the computer where this parameters still exists.
5. I also suspect there is some misalignment between Dalsa XML, the camera ICD, and the attributes MAX is showing - For example, in the ICD I can change parameters for both camera taps (i.e. Change gain for each tap etc...), but in the MAX camera attributes tab, there is only one parameter.

My next step is to un-install Labview, although I will hate to do so.

I will appreciate any help with this issue (Sorry for the long description)

Thanks,

Gil

[BlueCheese]

Gil,

Unfortunately I cannot yet give any timeline for adding the 82567 support. We do realize that the Lenovo laptops have this chip, making it an attractive option for GigE Vision on a laptop.

As for your second issue, I was pretty much expecting you to have run into this before your other issue. The SG-11 currently still has some major issues with its GigE Vision compatibility and it is likely that with the firmware you have on the camera that you'll run into all sorts of odd issues with various attributes on the camera. Dalsa's QuickCam utility doesn't go through the GigE Vision interface but rather opens a proprietary serial interface to the camera and thus does not have the same issues as IMAQdx has when trying to interact with the camera.

As for where the settings are being stored even though you deleted the ICD file, one option is that you either didn't power-cycle the camera and so the default settings IMAQdx sees are the ones that were set on the camera when it connects to it. Another possibility is that the default settings were changed in non-volatile memory on the camera.

The good news is that Dalsa is actively working on fixing these issues with the SG-11. You should try contacting their support or your distributor and see if you can get your camera swapped out with newer version that works better with generic GigE Vision software.

Hope this helps,

Eric