Configuring NI PXI chassis to power up with host PC

Normally the National Instruments PXI Chassis must be powered-up before you turn on your PC, otherwise the DAQ boards do not get recognized. This can be annoying - if you forgot to power-up PXI chassis before the PC you must restart the PC. In a multi-user environment this can also create additional confusion and training/troubleshooting overhead.

A nice hack how make NI PXI chassis power-up automatically when the PC is turned on is described in the following article:

Power-Up Options for PXIe Chassis From PC With MXI Express

We used Method 1 described in this article, and it worked great. Now the PXI chassis turns on/off automatically by the control PC itself, without the need for human intervention.

Method 1

PXI Express chassis have a power supply that can be controlled by the PXI Express system controller. The PXIe MXI Express x1/x4/x8/x16 board can use this functionality to automatically power-on downstream PXIe chassis when the host PC is turned on, or even power-on the host PC when the chassis power is turned on.

You can use the attached program to configure your MXI Express system for upstream/downstream power-up functionality.

To utilize the attached program, follow the steps outlined below: With a Command Prompt window (or terminal for Linux) open, change the working directory to the location containing the utility nidpocfg.exe file by entering the command cd . Enter command nidpocfg.exe. Since no arguments are supplied, this utility ENABLES downstream power-on for all supported controllers. To disable all downstream power-on for all supported controllers, enter command nidpocfg.exe -d. Restart your system and verify the desired functionality.

Note: This utility only works with NI PXI Platform Services 20.0 or later. This utility supports NI PXIe-8360, NI PXIe-8370, NI PXIe-8381 and NI-PXIe-1073. Enter command nidpocfg.exe -h to print help documentation. If you cannot upgrade the NI PXI Platform Services driver, you can use the attached NIPXIRemoteConfig.exe. This legacy utility is written in LabVIEW 2012, and requires the LabVIEW 2012 Runtime Engine and any version of NI-VISA between 5.2 and 15.5 (PXI Platform Services will also install NI-VISA). Verify that your remote controller is identified under the Controller Model heading. Use the check boxes under the Settings heading to specify either a Downstream power-on configuration (PXIe chassis powers-on when host PC powers-on) or an Upstream power-on configuration (host PC powers-on when PXIe chassis powers-on.) Restart your system and verify the desired functionality. The utility only needs to be ran once per PXI/MXI configuration. Therefore, once this program has been run on the MXI card and the settings are changed accordingly, you can install the card in a separate chassis that is connected to another computer. The configured power on and off functionality persists.