PXI MXI chassis timeout

[crelf]

I am trying to set up my MXI link between a PC (PCI) and a PXI-1036.  I've installed the PCI MXI card and installed VISA & MAX (no problems there).  The PXI Bridge shows up in MAX, and the chassis does too (I've set the identification to PXI-1036), but the chassis has a yellow "!" and a status of "The MXI-4 connection to this chassis timed out".  The "pwr" led on the PXI-8331 is green, but the "lnk" led is off.  Anyone got any ideas on what I'm doing wrong?

[crelf · Accepted solution]

Figured it out - turns out that the PXI-8331 wasn't fuctioning properly and is now on it's way back to NI with an RMA 🙂

[Mustanghipo65]

I'm having a similar issue. We're using the same hardware that you are and MAX shows the MXI-4 connection and the chassis. It shows the same timeout fault. The only difference on our end is that the link light and the TX light are both illuminated. The hardware worked fine for a while, then I installed the latest software (big jump from LV 7 to current version). It now doesn't work. How did you determine that you had bad hardware?

[Eric_K]

Mustanghipo65,

If MAX indicates that the MXI-4 connection has timed out, the MXI-4 card did not detect that it was connected to another MXI-4 card at power-up.

First, are you making sure to turn on the PXI Chassis before powering on the PC?  Also, have you made sure that the cable is plugged in properly?

If that does not help, check if your MXI-4 board show up correctly in the Windows Device Manager.  MXI-4 boards contain two distinct PCI functions onboard and will have two separate listings in the Windows Device Manager.  The first function will show up under System devices as a PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge and the second function listing will show up as a MXI-4 Connection Monitor when the correct MXI-4 driver is installed.  If the MXI-4 software is not installed, the PCI-to-PCI function will still be detected and work correctly, but the MXI-4 Connection Monitor will be detected as an unknown device.  If this is the case, try installing the PXI Platform Services driver from www.ni.com/support.

Eric K

Applications Engineer

National Instruments

Message Edited by Eric K on 04-30-2009 09:26 AM

[Mustanghipo65]

The chassis is being powered up 30 seconds before the computer, we have a delay timer to power up the computer after the MXI chassis and VXI chassis power up. The system devices show the MXI-4 connection monitor but not the bridge. I don't see the bridge until MAX is open. The cable is fine. I have tried un-installing all NI software and performing a fresh install. The latest PXI platform services is installed from the Q1 software update disks. I'm thinking the PXI controller in the chassis has broken within a month of buying it. Tech support so far is still working on it and I've been told that the issue has been forwarded to R&D.

I sure hope this can be solved pretty quickly as we're facing a July deadline. We're planning on using a reconfigurable I/O FPGA to generate synced TTL pulses and also planning on using it for a custom Digibus protocol used on aircraft.

[Eric_K]

Mustanghipo65,

Have you gotten this worked out with support yet?  Also, this is a PXI system, not a VXI system correct?

Eric K

Applications Engineering

National Instruments

[Mustanghipo65]

This system has VXI on it and we're adding PXI in the hopes of eventually removing the VXI. We did get the go ahead to send our components in for repair and it should be shipped out today.