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National Instruments Corporation
5
Set Up Your MXI-Express System
Cabling
Connect the appropriate MXI-Express cable to both MXI-Express cards.
The cables have no polarity, so either end may be connected to either card.
Caution
Do
not
remove the cable after the system is powered on. Doing so can hang
or cause errors in applications communicating with devices behind MXI-Express. If a
cable becomes unplugged, plug it back into the system.
Note
For more information about cables, refer to the
MXI-Express Cable Options
section
of Chapter 3,
Hardware Overview
, of the
MXI-Express Series User Manual
.
Powering On the MXI-Express System
Complete the following steps to power on the system.
1.
Power on all of the expansion chassis in any order you choose.
2.
Power on the host.
Typical PCI-PCI bridges are used to add PCI devices to a PCI hierarchy in
which all the bridges and devices are contained within a single chassis.
Because of this, BIOSes and operating systems make the assumption that
all PCI devices in the entire hierarchy will be available as soon as code
execution begins at power-up time. This assumption means that all of the
expansion chassis must be turned on before the host PC for the BIOS and
OS to correctly configure a MXI-Express system.
Note
There are no requirements on how MXI-Express expansion chassis are powered up
relative to each other, as long as they are all on before the computer is powered on.
Checking LEDs for Status
After powering on the system, you should check the LEDs for status to
ensure that all connected systems have linked. The following tables tell the
meaning of the LEDs.
NI PCIe-8360
Color
Meaning
Off
Power is off
Red
Power is out of spec
Amber
Power is within spec; no link to chassis
Green
Power is within spec; link established
