DAQmx hibernation issue

[_sem_]

Hi everyone!

Since DAQmx 8.7.1 installation (for use with USB-6009 and USB-6215) my laptop (Toshiba/WinXP SP2) takes ages to wake up from hibernation and if it eventually manages to it does not function properly anymore (mouse pointer gone etc). The DAQ hardware is not connected at that time because I don't carry it around.

I recall the same was going on with an earlier release of DAQmx, that's why I removed it after finishing the previous DAQ related project.

I'm kindly asking you to respond also if you have no problems after hibernation with a similar setup, as this may be an endemic issue.   

[Corby_B]

Hello _sem_

Thanks for your post.

I see that you specify that the DAQ hardware is not connected to the computer when you are trying to wake up from hibernation. However is the hardware connected when the computer goes into hibernation? If that is the case then this would cause a major problem as the NI services would not be able to find the hardware that is supposed to be there when the system wakes up from hibernation. A system restart would be required at this point.

Also what programs do you have running when you go into hibernation?

A suggestion might be to put the laptop in a system standby mode but never turning the hard disk off. Then in the system power settings you could also turn off the “Enable Hibernation” option in the Hibernate tab. This may decrease your battery life slightly but could solve the problem of the computer responding correctly when coming out of a system standby.

cbryan

[_sem_]

Thanks,

no no no, the DAQ device is certainly not connected when starting hibernation, in fact I use it rarely. This happens also if the device has not been connected since the last complete restart. However, DAQmx drivers are always present in the memory (the tasklist with no programs open gets longer).

I don't like to use standby so I don't know whether there is a difference or not. The computer is supposed to survive about ten hours on it without power, and after that one gets a cold restart. I tend to forget to plug my laptop in if I don't use it, and then lose my Matlab session.

Before DAQmx, hibernation worked nicely with Matlab, MS Office stuff etc. There are some programs like video players using overlays, for example, that crash or lose video after hibernation. Of course, I guess expecting the DAQ device to resume a task after hibernation is overkill, and I know disconnecting or connecting USB devices while hibernated is a bad idea. In my personal experience, fiddling like this with USB mice was OK but with an external WLAN adapter not at all).

[Nathan_R]

Hi _sem_,

Certain parts of the DAQmx driver, such as the NI Device Loader, are running in the background all the time. This will use some additional memory so more data will need to be saved or retrieved when going into and out of hibernation. However this should not noticeably slow down coming out of Hibernation. I would check to see if there are any driver or bios updates available for your laptop from Toshiba. These could possibly improve the hibernation performance. What model Toshiba laptop is this? DO you have any other USB devices connected when you go into or out of hibernation?

Thanks,

[_sem_]

I checked standby; also coming out of standby takes longer than usual. Actually, coming out of hibernation starts normally (the first screen "Resuming windows..." with the BW progress bar at the bottom); then, two more "black screen" wait stages happen, each quite a few seconds; finally, windows start reappearing. Except for the first one, the phases with standby appear similar.

The laptop is Satellite M60 and I don't believe there are any relevant updates I don't have. This happens also with no devices attached. In most cases there is just the delay problem, while sometimes the system does not wake up properly anymore.   

[Nathan_R]

Hey _sem_,

I would try defragmenting your hard drive. This can be done using the Windows utility Disk Defragmenter.  It can be found under Start >> Programs >> Accessories >> System Tools. This may help improve the performance of hibernation.  When you hibernate, Windows copies the entire contents of RAM to the hard drive and copies it back when you resume. If the disk is fragmented it will take much longer to do this. In general it’s a good idea to defragment the hard drive about once a month. Also how much free space do you have left on the laptops drive? Is it almost full? Windows performs much better when there is at least several GB of free space on the drive. Please let me know if this helps.

Thanks,

[_sem_]

Thanks, but defragmentation was made less than a month ago; there are several gigs left on both partitions, and space for hibernation is reserved by Windows in a file named hiberfil.sys or sth similar. I also know that turning disk write cache slows down the hibernations process and this is not the case.

This is not an issue of life or death as I can remove the driver again after this project is finished, but a better solution would be nice. I'd really like to know if this is something specific to my laptop or a general issue. Therefore I'd be grateful if someone could compare the time required for wake up from hibernation with and without DAQmx installed (with no DAQ card attached). 

[Nathan_R]

Hi _sem_,

I have NI-DAQmx installed on my laptop and so do many of my coworkers. I have not noticed any slowdown of hibernation. Also there is not a history of this problem with customers. I believe this is specific to your laptop, but I’m not sure what would cause this to happen. I would be interested to know if hibernation speeds up significantly after you uninstall the DAQmx driver.

Thanks,

[FTI_Newton]

Add me to the list of people experiencing this issue with the 6009 on a laptop. However, we do leave our 6009 plugged in. When we return from hibernation, we have to uninstall the driver, unplug and replug in the 6009. The NI Dev Loader detects it at this point and reloads the driver.

[Nathan_R]

Hi FTI Newton,

We have seen this behavior on some laptops with various NI and non-NI USB devices. The problem seems to be more related to how Windows and the particular laptop handle hibernating and waking up from hibernation. Windows is not very consistent in this regard. I recommend not using hibernation and just putting the laptop to sleep instead of fully hibernating it.

Thanks,