PCI-GPIB Card in Optiplex 7010 (i3 CPU) under Windows XP Prof SP3 32Bit - boot loop with BSOD after installing NI-488.2 (ver 2.1)

[MarekK2024]

Dear community,

I am trying to setup a replica of an old PC system, which has been (and still ist) running for about 20 years now.

For safety reasons it is required to setup a 1:1 copy (clone) of an old system, using a PC currently available on the market.

The key components / features of the old system are the following:

PC with 4GB RAM (Pentium CPU)

Windows XP Prof 32Bit, SP3

NI PCI-GPIB interface with NI 2.1 driver

The system is equipped with another PCIe card (frame grabber) and uses RS232 interface for communication with external devices.

The control software running on the PC ist proprietary (was developed under Visual C++ 6.0).

I have purchased a refurbished Dell Optiplex 7010 (i3 CPU, 4GB RAM, 2xPCIe + 1xPCI slots). Windows XP Prof SP3 32Bit can be installed with ease (has been done several times already). However, after installing the NI-488.2 software (original CD "Version 6.9.2" NI-488.2 Ver. 2.1 from 2002 is available) the system crashes, resp. goes into endless boot loop with BSOD ("STOP: 0x0000007E ...").

The PCI-CARD carries the following label: 18361K-01.

The other PCIe interface card can be installed without any trouble and the proprietary software seems to be running (of course without accessing the PCI GPIB interface).

NI-488.2 Ver. 2.4 and 2.5 has been tested as well, but no change (ending with BSOD loop)

What could be the possible reason for the PCI-GPIB card incompatibility? The card itself is running without problems in the old system. Optiplex has the latest BIOS installed (Dell support is discontinued).

What shall/can I do, in order to identify the problem? Any recommendations would be highly appreciated!

I could try another PC, but it might be hard to find one that really "fits" (PCI+PCIe+RS232, Windows XP compatible / SATA in ATA mode etc.).

Regards

MarekK2024

P.S. Please do not recommend upgrading the OS - drivers for other system components are not compatible with newer Windows versions. Rewriting the whole proprietary software is planned, but will require a lot of effort and will take time. A replica of an old system seemed to be the simplest step to keep the old system running for a while.

[Iwa6]

Try installing NI-488.2 15.5, the final version that supports Windows XP.
Please note that the old NI-488.2 is not available on the homepage, so you will need to contact NI support to obtain it.

https://knowledge.ni.com/KnowledgeArticleDetails?id=kA00Z0000019QOfSAM

[MarekK2024]

Thank you!

Meanwhile I have found out that the 2.1, 2.4 and 2.5 Versions, which I have tried do NOT support Windows XP SP3.

I have already downloaded all the SP3 compatible drivers and will try them out (beginning with the latest - the one you mentioned). I will report again when I am done.

P.S. The following versions seem to be the only SP3 compatible ones:

2.7.0
2.7.1
2.7.3
2.8.0
2.8.1
3.0.0
3.0.2
3.1.0
3.1.1
3.1.2
14.0
15.0
15.5

[MarekK2024]

I am afraid the problem persists.

I tried to run a "cloned" disk on the target Optiplex, but due to hardware configuration differences - without success.

I had no chance to eliminate / uninstall any of the software components, as Windows will not start at all and breaks with BSOD in any startup configuration ("safe mode" etc.).

I presume the breaks as soon as NI driver ist installed.

I will try a fresh Windows XP SP3 installation and one of the NI drivers listed above.

Could a graphicscard cause any conflict with the NI software? Optpilex uses Intel built-in GP.

[Iwa6]

If your hardware configuration is different, I recommend a clean install instead of a clone.

A clean installation is less likely to cause problems.

[MarekK2024]

Well, this is surely a better option, but I was hoping to be able to boot the existing (cloned) Windows installation in "safe mode". I then planned to remove (unistall) the NI software, which is apparently causing the BSOD.

I have already done a clean Windows XP 32 SP3 installation (several times), but as soon as the NI driver was installed the system crashed at boot with BSOD, even without any NI hardware (PCI GPIB card) inserted. Also with "clean" Win installaton I was unable to boot the system, even not to the "safe mode".

NI software seems to be unable to coexist with the hardware configuration. I have tried to play with the BIOS setup (the latest version available for this model), with no success.

The only major difference between the "old" (still working) PC and the current Dell hardare seems to be the graphic card (apart from different CPUs: Pentium vs. i3). The "old" system has a dedicated card installed and the Dell has none, i.e. is using the internal i3 GPU. Part of the RAM space in the Dell is reserved for unidentified components - possibly shared pool for the i3 GPU?

I will now try to fit a dedicated graphic card into the Optiplex and see if it helps.

[MarekK2024]

I guess I could pinn-down the "core" of the problem: the "nipalk.sys" driver.

I booted the PC from a separate disk, located the ni* files (windows/system32) on the cloned disk and disabled (renamed) them one by one, until the cloned disk booted without endless BSOD/boot loop.

I then booted Windows from this disk and reainstalled the latest (15.5) version of the NI-488.2 supporting SP3 - success!

The PC can be booted now, the NI and other already installed software seem to run.

By the way, the "nipalk.sys problem" seems to be already known in this forum (also associated with Optiplex) 🙂

Regards

MarekK2024

P.C. Of course a few drivers (graphic card, audio, USB WiFi dongle etc.) needed to be updatet/replaced, but this was no big deal.

[rolfk]

Try to boot into Windows safe mode. That disables most device drivers with the exception of the absolutely necessary ones for chipset, HD and network. Then you can go into the Windows Service Manager and disable the NI device drivers. Then try to start from there. That version 2.1 did even install is surprising, but definitely a bad action. It was released well before Windows 7 was any reality.

The nipal driver hooks deep into the Windows hardware kernel drivers, directly interfacing with the chipset drivers for DMA, Interrupt and physical IO and memory  access. And these chipset drivers are very complex and not static at all, adding newer features all the time to support new hardware options in chipsets. This means that nipal is very prone to backwards incompatible changes in the chipsset and PCI drivers as well as bugs in nipal, that happen to have worked by accident in earlier OS drivers.

[MarekK2024]

The case ist solved.

As I wrote - neither the cloned Windows XP, nor a "clean" installation with NI 2.1/2.4 could NOT be booted even into "safe mode" and ended up with an endless boot-BSOD loop.

Only after I have booted the PC from the second harddisk ("plain" Windows XP) and disabled (with "brute force" through renaming) the nipal file the first (cloned) disk I could boot (cloned) Windows XP 32b. I then reinstalled NI (ver. 15.5) and since then the (cloned) Windows XP installation is running fine.

I needed to update/replace a few drivers, among them for the graphic card, which was different than in the source system. By the way - the target PC did NOT work (with the newly updated NI 15.5) with the i3 CPU on-chip graphics, so adding a dedicated GC was necessary.