PCI DIO-96 Card Issue

[Test_Engxx]

I have an existing application written in LabWindows/CVI version 5.0 that controls a PCI DIO-96 Daq card.  This application was
running on Windows NT, and hasn't changed in several years.  The computer hard drive crashed, and the computer was
reconfigured with Windows 2000.  The original install disk for the DIO card could not be located.  NI-Daq 7.5 was downloaded
and installed.  The Test and Measurement suite will see the card, and will control individual lines via the soft panel.  My problem
is that the existing LabWindows application will not see the card.  I get error -10240 'the driver interface could not locate or open the
driver' when I try to call 'init_da_boards' in the DAQ function panels.  I have spent several hours on the NI website, but haven't found
anything that leads me to a solution.

Is NI-Daq 7.5 capable of supporting LabWindows/CVI version 5.0, or do I need an older version?

The NI website seems to point to 7.4.1 T as the correct driver for the DIO card itself.  Do I need to
uninstall 7.5 and get 7.4.1 T installed on the machine?

I saw one post that was close to my issue, which suggested that CVI support wasn't selected when the NI-Daq 7.5 was
installed.  Is that possibly my problem?  IT did the install, and I don't know for sure what they had selected.  Can I find this
out by verifying that certain .dll's or other files are on the system?

Does this have anything to do with the 'mx' versus 'legacy' versions of NI-Daq?

[Coal_Man]

It sounds like IT has installed the DAQmx driver version 7.5, not the traditional NI-DAQ driver that you need.  The device will show up in MAX because it is supported both by DAQmx, our newest driver, and traditional DAQ.  However, it sounds like your program was written using the traditional drivers.  If you go to the main page, and then head to the drivers and updates page, download Traditional NI-DAQ (Legacy) driver version 7.4.1 and install it, it should work out fine. 

DAQmx and traditional DAQ are completely different drivers that use different function calls.  DAQmx is the newest driver and has greater functionality for our newer boards, including multithreading capability.  Also, DAQmx gets regular updates to improve functionality and usability.  For more info on the advantages of DAQmx, see the following;

http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/2998

Best of Luck,

Brian

Message Edited by Brian C on 03-28-2007 11:46 AM

[Matt_A]

Hello Test Engxx,

From your post, I believe you have NI-DAQmx 7.5 installed. There is currently no version 7.5 of Traditional NI-DAQ (Legacy), so it is most likely that NI-DAQmx is installed. You can confirm this information by following the steps in this document; you may have a later version of MAX installed, but the procedure should be the same. NI-DAQmx 7.5 does not support LabWindows/CVI 5.0 and, in fact, there is no version of the NI-DAQmx driver that is compatible with that version of LabWindows/CVI. The NI-DAQmx driver began in parallel with Traditional NI-DAQ (Legacy) at version 7.0. NI-DAQmx 7.0 supports LabWindows/CVI version 7.0 while Traditional NI-DAQ (Legacy) 7.0 supports LabWindows/CVI versions 6.0 & 7.0.

It is most likely that your program uses the Traditional NI-DAQ (Legacy) driver. You can confirm this by examining the function calls in the program. NI-DAQmx calls will likely have the phrase "DAQmx" in the function name. Traditional NI-DAQ (Legacy) functions do not have this phrase in the function names. However, since there is no support for LabWindows/CVI 5.0 in any version of NI-DAQmx, I think it's pretty safe to assume that you are using Traditional NI-DAQ (Legacy). Since you are using an older version of LabWindows/CVI, you will need an older version of the Traditional NI-DAQ (Legacy) driver. Traditional NI-DAQ (Legacy) 6.6 is the oldest version that we still have hosted on our website, and I believe this version should work for your application. You can find the download for this driver here.