Timeout errors using Dell PowerEdge 2650 with Win 2000 Server

[skilagig]

I have dual Xeon 1.8 Ghz processors. My server is connected to a PXI 1000B chassis via MXI-3. The MXI-3 would not physically fit into my server so I had to buy a PCI extender(Magma) to get it to work. I have two PXI-6031e cards in the PXI chassis. Each connects to and SCXI-1001 chassis. I have written several different programs to acquire data. I have used DAQ_Op, Scan_Op and the low level functions with double buffering. I have used software timers for the actual scan functions and I have used while loops with flags. It does not matter which configuration I use because I still get timeout errors (10800). I moved my MXI-3 to another computer(single processor 2.5Ghz) and everything worked as it should. Is this ser
ver software too process intensive to be reliable for data acquisition?

[johnyb777]

We have actually tested a very similar set up here, in house and we have never seen the errors that you are receiving. We had several 1006 (18-slot PXI chassis) connected to a Dell PowerEdge 2650 Dual Xeon via MXI-3. We tested here both without the Magma (through the single internal PCI) and through the Magma PCIx to PCI extender. We never saw the problem described so I would first say that the server software should not be too process intensive for the Data Acquisition, but we were not performing your EXACT application. One thing I would recommend is trying your application directly through the PCI slot of your server PC, this would at least eliminate the Magma hardware. Please let me know what you find from this experiment and I will be happy to assist further.
Thanks!

A. Bacak
National Instruments
Applications Engineer

[skilagig]

The (2U) server has 3 PCI-X slots and the MXI-3 card will not physically fit into those slots. I did move the MXI-3 card to another computer (single processor 2.53 Ghz) and tested with and without the Magma PCI extender. The test were successful in both instances.

[johnyb777]

The PC that you have is apparently a little different from the one that we have here. The one that we have here has several PCI-X slots as well as a single PCI slot, I apologize for the confusion. What is the model of the Magma Bus extender that you are using? You may want to contact Magma to see if there may be a newer version of this hardware.

Anthony

[skilagig]

The Magma extender is a CB4/PCI4 series.