Appendix B
Common Questions
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National Instruments Corporation
B-5
PCI-Based MXI-2 Interfaces for Windows 2000/NT/Me/98
Which NI-VXI utility program must I use to initialize the PCI-MXI-2
or PXI-8320?
Windows 2000/NT/Me/98 automatically initializes the board at system
startup.
Which NI-VXI utility program must I use to perform startup Resource
Manager operations?
Use the Resman program to perform startup Resource Manager operations.
You can run Resman by selecting a VXI system and clicking on the
Run
VXI Resource Manager
button in the MAX toolbar. Resman uses the
settings configured in MAX and initializes your VXI/VMEbus system.
Through MAX, you can also configure Resman to run automatically at
computer startup.
What can I do to make sure my system is up and running?
The fastest method for testing the system is to run Resman. This program
attempts to access memory in the upper A16 address space of each device
in the system. If Resman does not report any problems, the VXI/MXI
communication system is operational.
To test individual devices, you can use VISAIC or VIC to interactively
issue NI-VISA operations or NI-VXI functions, respectively. You can use
the
viIn/Out()
or
VXIin/out()
functions or the
VXIin/outReg()
functions to test register-based devices by programming their registers. If
you have any message-based devices, you can send and receive messages
with the
viWrite/Read()
or
WSwrt/rd()
functions. Notice that
VXIin/outReg()
are for VXI devices only, but you can use
viIn/Out()
or
VXIin/out()
for both VXI and VME.
Finally, if you are using LabVIEW or Measurement Studio and you
have instrument drivers for the devices in your chassis, you can use the
interactive features of these programs to quickly test the functionality of
the devices.
