"Not Enough Resources for BallardTech ARINC Card

[DaveV]

I have a PXI-1033 Chassis with NI PXI 6534 I/O (Slot 2) and BallardTech LC429-3 ARINC Serial Data Card (Slot 6) and a custome card that only uses Power. I cannot "see" the BallardTech Card (After all updates installed for MAX etc). The Hardware Device Manager says the unit cannot find "resources" to be connected to the PCI bus. I have turned off every possible bus etc in Device Manager with no benefits. On rare occaision I can "see" the card but only by pure chance.

HELP!! Thanks very much in advance for any info.

[EEsRULEtheWORLD]

Hi, DaveV.

The BallardTech card will not appear in MAX.   MAX will only detect devices that are National Instrument devices.  Try a National Instruments PXI card in slot 6.  If that card can be detected and passes the self-test, then there is no issue with the chassis.  If your Windows Device Manager isn't detecting the BallardTech card, you may want to check if the appropriate drivers for that card are installed.

Is the PXI 1033 and PXI 6534 detected successfully in Windows Device Manager and MAX?

I hope you're having a great day!

[DaveV]

Sara -

Thanks very much for the reply. Here is my status:

1) Max does see the 6534 but does not see the Ballard Card. I am running MAX 4.6.1

2) I took the chassis to Ballard Tech (They are here near our facility by chance) and they installed the latest drivers (2008 - 2009). They also installed "Co Pilot" software (ARINC, 1553 etc Bus analysis software).

3) On my Dell Inspiron M90 Laptop I upgraded the BIOS to A08 - latest from Dell

4) Windows System Hardware Information DOES detect the Ballard Card - BUT it says - LC429-3 Card is not working because there are not enough resources - Code 12 Error

5) I have downloaded all of the latest VISA and installed that and was about to update DAQmx code (1.3 GB !! What a download!!)

6) The 1033 Chassis and 6534 are detected perfectly in MAX and I can configure them if I desire (No changes made from Default)

So from my perspective this is a PCI bus issue. The Ballard card dates from 2003 and has been in PCI systems for a long time

Many Thanks -  I do not have another National PCI card to try - but that does not seem necessary - Windows XP on my machine can see it on the chassis - but states that there are not enough free resources.

Dave V

[EEsRULEtheWORLD]

Hi, Dave V.

You will not be able to detect your BallardTech card in MAX, regardless of how many times you reinstall VISA or DAQmx.  MAX will only detect the National Instrument cards.  The BallardTech card is not a National Instruments card.  You can test that slot by replacing the BallardTech card with the 6534 (which is a National Instruments card).  If the 6534 is detected, then there is nothing wrong with the PCIbus.  The issue would then be with the BallardTech card.  I'm not familiar with the BallardTech cards, so you would need to contact BallardTech support.

Let me know if you need any more information.

[Robert__R]

DaveV,

It may be that the Ballard card uses legacy IO resources and that the M90 isn't setting that up correctly.  I suggest this because IO resources are more limited and thus problematic than regular memory.  It could also be that it's requesting too much memory for the M90.

If you find the card in device manager in a working system, go to the properties page, resources tab.  It should list at least one memory range, possibly an I/O range, and an IRQ.  (You can view your ethernet card or video card for examples with both memory and I/O).

Let me know what you find.

- Robert 

[DaveV]

Robert-

After testing we have done here I am becoming convinced you are on the right trail. I'm not sure what you mean by "If you find the card in device manager in a working system..." -but here is what we have so far:

1) We know the system worked ok when it was first tested in Brno, Czech Republic (We have a division there) on a Dell M6300.

2) We are doing the testing here in Washington State and there is no copy of the test hardware in Brno to have them check device manager -

3) When we insert the Express card into the M90 it recognizes the PXI 1033 Chassis and the National 6534 I/O board

4) We can transfer tons of data at high speed via the 6534 from a high speed A/D etc that interfaces directly to the 6534 (no bus / memory resources needed)

5) We can "see" the LC429 Ballard Card on Device Manager (properties of MyComputer etc) but it displays a "Code 12 Error" - Not Enough Resources.

6) We do know that the Ballard card is based on a legacy design - it has been around since about 2002/3.

When this Code 12 error occurs - the resource tab shows nothing - ie - it repeats the message about no resources and it gives no memory range or IRQ setting - it never gets that far.

We repeated this test on another M90 PC and got precisely the same results, so its not a matter of configuration of one PC. I can try to get the "typical Memory Range and IRQ that is found perhaps at Ballard and see what they have to say about it if that would help. We are going to try to locate another laptop - but if you have ideas about disabling say the 1394 fire wire and other I/O to "make room" for this card I'd be willing to do that if given some direction on the method for the madness. THANKS VERY MUCH for the reply.

[DaveV]

Robert- One other comment - there are NI Knowledgebase issues that specifically state that CODE 12 (Not enough resources) can require an update to the BIOS of a PC to make it work. This means there is nothing special about the Ballard Card - its a compatibility issue with the PC and the NI PXI bus system apparently - when a non- NI card is involved. A search of the NI data base for "Not Enough Resources - Code 12) will take you to the following links:

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/04C12CB4A5143ECC862572DC007B8DF6?OpenDocument

The summary seems to be either to remove a particular NI driver, or there is a motherboard incompatibility with their ExpressCard.

Also this page is a general MXI link FAQ:

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/81CBF2F7F0BAEDBD86257330000514DF?OpenDocument

And another:

http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/9949#toc0

I have updated the BIOS on my Dell M90 (now Rev A08) and nothing changed. I have checked on all of the advice offered in the links above - but no change.

[Robert__R]

Dave,

There's a utility that should help if you have a compatible version of hardware.  

http://joule.ni.com/nidu/cds/view/p/id/1422/lang/en 

There's a link to compatible hardware on that page.  If you don't have the right hardware look at 779507-01.

The compatibility issue is probably caused by IO space that the Ballard card is requesting.  This utility should be able to work around it, but I don't have the hardware to try it out. 

"If you find the card in device manager in a working system..." could be better stated as "If you have a working system, find the card in device manager..."  It sounds like you don't have a system around that works, though, so it doesn't really matter.

Most cards (such as the NI PXI-6534) use memory-mapped IO, or memory space, to communicate with the hardware.  That means that the software can access the card in the same way it would access regular memory.  Nearly every card works this way.  Some cards or ports (serial, parallel, ethernet, video) use legacy IO space as well.  Most things you can access from DOS use IO space.  IO space is pretty limited, and some systems have trouble allocating it to all the devices requesting it.

Anyway, I hope this helps.

- Robert 

[DaveV]

Robert-

I'm convinced you have hit the nail on the head. Based on your earlier comments on the required resources - particularly the Memory Allocation. I looked up the LC429 Card details and sure enough - it has over 1MB of memory on board. If the card is attempting to find that much free memory to allocate from the limited legacy I/O its not likely to work on newer PCs.

I also learned that BallardTech makes a USB based box that uses the same programming API's and has a translation DLL to point the calls for the PXI based system to the USB box and it should work transparently. I'm going to try that this AM and see how it goes.

You deserve Kudos - as your questions and info are definitely pointing to the real issue here.

Thanks Much

DaveV