FAQs
Category: DAQ Cards (ISA/PCI)
Hardware
In RS-232, the TX signal is used for output while the RX signal is used for input. Users can short the TX and RX signals to make a loop-back test.
In RS-485, it is a differential signal through the Data+ and Data- wires. When the difference in voltage between Data+ and Data-, Vab, is great than 200mV, the RS-485 receiver then generates logic "1". When the Vab is less than -200mV, the RS-485 receiver then generates logic "0".
Thus, if user shorts the Data+ and Data- wires together, the Vab is then becomes 0V and the RS-485 receiver generates nothing. Actually, the RS-485 bus doesn’t work when the Data+ and Data- wires are shorted.
An alternate method is using two RS-485 ports, which shorts the two Data+ signals of ports, and shorts the two Data- signals of ports. Users can then send and receive data from one to another port for testing.
In normal PC, the PCI card in the slot closest to the CPU will be the first one, and so on.
Please note:
- Driver always search the PCI card one by one from the PCI slot-0.
- Driver search the PCI cards via the PCI bus controller (offset 0xCFC and 0xCF8 registers).
- Driver identifies the PCI card by Vendor-ID, Device-ID, SubVendor-ID and SubDevice-ID.
- The base-address of every PCI card maybe changed while the system is adding/removing PCI card(s).
- Some BIOS supports "OS PnP" feature. If the driver has problem to work with the PCI card(s), please try todisable the "OS PnP" setting and then try again.
Software
calls anymore. For example, to use ISO-P64 under Windows 2000:
// Get address first
1. ISO_ActiveBoard(0)
2. ISO_GetConfigAddress(&wBase0, &BoardNo)
3. ISO_ActiveBoard(1)
4. ISO_GetConfigAddress(&wBase1,&BoardNo)
// I/O directly
5. ISO_InputByte(wBase0+n)
6. ISO_InputByte(wBase1+n)
But it's not enough to support all features [For example: ISR (Interrupt Service Routine) ...] of every devices. Thus, we provide different drivers to support I/O cards, and users have to install these drivers correctly to make sure devices can work with full features.
As you can see that they work totally different. That's why the PIO_PISO.exe and Diag.exe / demo programs may have the different result.
Most of the problems may be caused by:
1. PCI card isn't plugged well in the slot, or the slot doesn't work!
2. User doesn't finish the PnP (Plug & Play) operation correctly!
3. The related driver isn't installed yet!
4. System resource sharing/conflict problems.
If you still got problems, please try ...
1. Put the card in another slot to make sure the slot is good or bad.
2. Check and change the BIOS setting about IRQ number and PnP.
3. Disable the "OS PNP" feature in BIOS setting.
4. Remove other cards that do not necessary in the test.
(For example: Sound Card, Network card ... and SCSI card. )
5. Contact us.
Note 1: Under Windows 9X/2K/XP, users have to finish the PnP (Plug&Play) operation to let Windows to allocate resources for these PCI cards.
These cards can then works correctly. Please refer to "Inf\PnPInstall.pdf" to finish the PnP operation.
Note 2: Please refer to "Manual\ResCheck.pdf” to check your system resource.
Note 3: While the card cannot be found in the system, the different OS will have the different behaves.
A. Windows 9X/ME
Loading driver OK, but failed in search card or the TotalBoards parameter returns 0.
B. Windows NT/2K/XP
Failed while loading drivers and returns Driver_Initialize_Error.
Note 4: Most of the NT driver doesn't works under Windows 2000. Please use the correct toolkit and drivers.
Please log on as Administrator before installing drivers.