PXI-8336 status LED description

[Kristian_Altmann]

I am having trouble finding a valid description for the front panel LEDs on a PXI-8336.

Our setup has two of these cards with the host beeing attached to a cPCI-backplane and the slave beeing attached to a PXI-backplane. Every now and then we run into a communication error during which the link and power LEDs are solid green but the RX on the host and TX on the slave are solid amber. The device manager on the host system does not state any errors. So what do these solid LEDs say?

[bavci]

Hi Kristian,

Below is the meaning of the LEDs on 8336 MXI-4 controller: 

PWR:  Green LED that's on when the board has power within spec
LNK:   Green LED that's on when the PCI card and the PXI card can see each other
RX:     Amber LED that flashes when the card is recieving data
TX:      Amber LED that flashes when the card is transmitting data

Best,

Bart

[Kristian_Altmann]

Hi Bart,

thanks for the info. Is there any documentation on why the LED can be static on and not flashing? From our System behaviour ist seems like there is a communication issue 😕

/Kristian

[Robert__R]

Kristian,

The condition you describe happens when you power the system in the wrong order.  If you don't power up the slave chassis before the host chassis then you'll get that LED behavior.  I'm not sure where that's documented, but that's probably what's happening.

- Robert

[Kristian_Altmann]

I made some additional tests and caught the whole transition from working to this undocumented state. The video shows the status LEDs on the slave chassis during the error. It is not very sharp but one gets whats happening.

https://sendit.hexagon.com/message/I3seHjrlD9vzC8CE48SzdI

It looks like the slave is loosing power and does some attempts to reestablish communication with the master. I tested every possible power failure scenario with the slave chassis and the outcome is always identical but different from what is visible in the video. The slave reinitializes and waits with the link and power LED static green for the master.

So my question would be what causes this kind of procedure/behavior since it does not seem to be a simple power cycle.

[Kristian_Altmann]

obsolete

[Kristian_Altmann]

I made a short video using a webcam that shows some strange behaviour on the slave side.

https://sendit.hexagon.com/message/I3seHjrlD9vzC8CE48SzdI

The video shows the status LEDs on the slave chassis during the error. It is not very sharp but one gets whats happening.

It looks like the slave is loosing power and makes some attempts to reestablish communication with the master. I tested every possible power failure scenario with the slave chassis and the outcome is always identical but different from what is visible in the video. The slave reinitializes and waits with the link and power LED static green for the master.

So my question would be what causes this kind of procedure/behavior since it does not seem to be a simple power cycle and how can we prevent it from happening?