Appendix B
Troubleshooting and Common Questions
©
National Instruments Corporation
B-3
PXI-GPIB/PMC-GPIB for Windows NT
Once you have identified the resource that caused the conflict, use the GPIB
Configuration utility to reconfigure your GPIB interface so that it uses
conflict-free resources. To help in the selection of conflict-free resources,
Microsoft has provided a utility called Windows NT Diagnostics. This
utility displays a list of the I/O port addresses, interrupt levels, and DMA
channels that your system is currently using. You can assign resources not
listed by this utility to your GPIB interface.
To run the Windows NT Diagnostics utility, select
Start»Programs»Administrative Tools»Windows NT Diagnostics.
Using Windows NT Diagnostic Tools
There are many reasons why the GPIB driver might not load. If the software
is not properly installed or if there is a conflict between the GPIB hardware
and the other hardware in the system, the GPIB driver fails to start. Two
Windows NT utilities are useful in determining the source of the problem:
the Devices applet in the Control Panel, and the Event Viewer. The
following sections describe the information available through each utility.
Examining NT Devices To Verify the GPIB Installation
To verify whether the GPIB devices are installed correctly (that is, that the
devices are started), select Start»Settings»Control Panel and
double-click on the Devices icon.
This utility lists all of the devices detected by Windows NT. Each device
has a status associated with it. If the GPIB driver is installed correctly, the
following lines appear in the list of Windows NT devices:
Device
Status
Started
GPIB Board Class Driver
Started
Automatic
GPIB Device Class Driver
Started
Automatic
You should also see one or more lines similar to the following:
Device
Status
Started
GPIB Port Driver (PCI-GPIB)
****
System
The GPIB Board Class Driver, the GPIB Device Class Driver, and at least
one of the GPIB Port Drivers listed by the Devices applet should have a
status of
Started
. If not, refer to the next section,
System Log Using the Event Viewer
If the GPIB Class Driver lines are not present or at least one GPIB Port
Driver line is not present, the GPIB software is not installed properly. You
