Hi David, This is really beginning to wear me down, but I've found a few indications of what's going on. First, to summarize: My customer bought a test system from us in February that included a Panasonic Toughbook CF-18 (XPPro, SP2) and a 6024E DAQcard. A hard drive failure forced a warrenty return to Panasonic. They replaced the HDD, the Motherboard and the PCMCIA sockets (I've no idea what was going on with all that). When the machine was returned, he reinstalled NIDAQ 6.9.3. The DAQcard from thence on is seen only as a "Generic Memory card MTD-0001" in Device Manager, and not at all in MAX. He shipped the whole system back to me. After bashing around with the device manager a bit, things further deterioated to the point where insertion of
any PCMCIA card locked up all input resources. Leaving it powered down without the battery for a while helped the lock-up problem briefly.
Following a recommendation to examine the IRQ assignments, the System Info panel indicated that the sound adapter, 4 usb ports and the 2 PCMCIA slots were all on IRQ 9. Disabling all of the above reliably solved the lock-up on insertion problem, but the customer's 6024E still was not correctly identified, nor wereeither of my "good" DAQcards.
This was about the time (and about 12 hours of troubleshooting later) that I posted my initial request for help. (NOTE: I was mistaken when I said that both the "good" and the "suspect" DAQcards passed the online E-series diagnostic. The suspect card failed detection. Those results, such as they are, were submitted from the test panel.)
In response to your suggestion, I updated the CF-18 to NIDAQ 7.4.4 and got identical results. In addition, both my DAQcards (6024E) that I use in my lab were also incorrectly enumerated and unseen in MAX. I reinstalled the entire OS from the manufacturer's OEM reocvery disc set, reinstalled NIDAQ 7.4.4 and still had the same result.
My two 6024E DAQcards function perfectly in both of my Panasonic CF-M34s (one is Win2000 and one is XP), but my customer's DAQcard still appears as an unrecognized device MTD-0001 or similar in both of those machines! I was able to force the DM in one of my CF-M34 machines to update the driver of the "MTD-0002" to a DAQcard 6024E, but it appears with a yellow exclaimation point, and crashes MAX instantly.
I should also note that I have at least one other customer with an identical setup - CF-18 Toughbook and 6024E that works without any problems.
From this, I am able to deduce that the customer DAQcard has a problem. Perhaps a blown fuse? Checking the allowable voltage limits for the CF-18 PCMCIA slots (3.3V, 400MAh and 5V, 400MAh), they should tolerate the 5v 270MAh DAQcard withoug a problem, although I've seen this mysterious MTD-0002 error discussed in fourms in relation to inadequate socket power for
other devices. Since I have a duplicate system I use as my own back-up, I will ship it off to my customer while I attempt to solve the issue with help from NI and Panasonic help desks, and the obtuse information sometimes available from Microsoft regarding how to redistribute the IRQs (They've got a terse paper with the catchy title: "How to force a hardware abstraction layer during an upgrade
or installation of XP" that appears to be next on the hit parade.
Any help you can render will be gratefully accepted. Thanks, Jenn
