Getting 'Error -88705 occurred at self-test' for PCI-6520 after cycling power to PC

[Brett_Percy]

Hi,

I'm using a PCI-6520 card in an industrial PC running Windows Embedded Standard (64bit).  The card works fine in normal use, but if the PC's power is turned off and back on (instead of shutting Windows down nicely from the Start menu), the card won't communicate when the machine starts up.  If I try to run a self test in MAX, I get the error 'Error -88705 occured at self-test'.  The card remains unusable until I reboot the PC nicely from the Start menu

Unfortunately this system is going to be used headless in an industrial application, so if it does ever get turned off, it will be by turning off the power and not via windows or the soft power switch on the front panel of the PC.  It is important that the machine can boot up into the LabVIEW application from power on without any outside intervention.

There is also an NI GigE card in the PC and that continues to work fine regardless of how the PC is shut down

Some specs on the system:

Intel DH67CL motherboard 

Core i7 3770 CPU at 3.4GHz

8GB RAM

64bit Windows Embedded OS

NI-DAQmx Driver v9.3.5

Cheers,

Brett

[Jason-M]

Hi Brett_Percy,

Unfortunately, we don't spec our cards to go into a safe startup mode when they are shutoff without warning. I am assuming that the 6520 is in a run state when power is lost, and it may remain in a state that will not allow MAX to ping it after startup. Have you tried to reset the devices and interfaces in MAX (by pressing f5) after the computer boots up after power is lost? This may reset the device to a state that MAX can ping it. You may have an option on your computer to run a full windows power down and restart when power is shut off and on. This would be ideal to ensure that the card registers in your system correctly. You may also be able to programmatically run a restart or a MAX reset, if you are so inclined to write the code.

On a separate note, I believe upgrading to a newer version of DAQmx may be beneficial for your system to run as robustly as possible. I do not think that this will solve your issue, but it is definitely worth doing regardless.

Best,

[Brett_Percy]

Hi Jason,

I've been in contact with David Ore at NI Sydney and we've narrowed down the problem to the NI Device Loader service not starting up automatically after an abrupt power down.  I can resolve the problem by manually restarting the service, but I haven't been able to get it to automatically restart - I found this KB article http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/websearch/0819391CA91B3EB38625731D00024649?opendocument&Submitted&&... which has been helpful.  Unfortunately it didn't show up when searching for 'Error -88705 occurred at self-test', but it does show up if you just search for 'Error -88705'

Currently I'm downloading DAQmx v9.6 which I'm hoping will resolve the issue as it removes some dependencies from the Device Loader server which I'm hoping might be the reason why it won't currently restart.  I'll post up the results of this later today.

Cheers,

Brett

[Brett_Percy · Accepted solution]

I've just installed version 9.6 of DAQmx and that seems to have sorted the problem out

Cheers,

Brett