Delay LabJack start up on reboot

[RJE]

Hello

I hope I will explain my problem clearly.

I have a USB network running down to my basement with my computer on the top floor. I'm running DaqFactory that talks to a U3 gathering data in the basement, an energy meter through a USB to UART bridge and also a UPS unit on the USB network that is comm'd with.

The problem is at computer restart, it seems the U3, energy meter and UPS fight over the USB and thus never connect. My remedy so far is, I can manually start the UPS services on reboot. Prior to reboot I have to go down and unplug the U3 and energy meter. Once reboot has finished I then plug the U3 in, wait for solid green led and then plug the energy meter in and all is well.

The USB network reboots fine with just the energy meter plugged in so is there a way to manually start the U3 from a software point of view.

Thanks

RJE

[LabJack Support]

Hello

I hope I will explain my problem clearly.

I have a USB network running down to my basement with my computer on the top floor. I'm running DaqFactory that talks to a U3 gathering data in the basement, an energy meter through a USB to UART bridge and also a UPS unit on the USB network that is comm'd with.

The problem is at computer restart, it seems the U3, energy meter and UPS fight over the USB and thus never connect. My remedy so far is, I can manually start the UPS services on reboot. Prior to reboot I have to go down and unplug the U3 and energy meter. Once reboot has finished I then plug the U3 in, wait for solid green led and then plug the energy meter in and all is well.

The USB network reboots fine with just the energy meter plugged in so is there a way to manually start the U3 from a software point of view.

Thanks

RJE

When the computer is powered off does the U3 lose power as well?

My guess of what is happening is that when the computer restarts, the U3 keeps power, and since it never powers on, it doesn't reenumerate with the PC, so the PC never knows about it. One option would be to enable the watchdog on the U3, so if a period of time goes by without a communication from the PC, the U3 will reset itself, which will then force it to enumerate. You also might be able to force it by opening up the device manager, right clicking on the USB devices section and selecting 'scan for hardware changes.' That typically looks through the USB ports and forces things to reenumerate.

[RJE]

I have 4 powered USB hubs with max cable length between each one. The LJ, energy meter and UPS are all plugged into the last hub.

They don't power down when the computer is rebooted but a single powered hub would not either.

Interesting to note that I did not have the problem with my old XP machine (no UPS on the USB network though). It started when I finished building my new Win7 64 bit machine and put that into service.

What happens when I reboot with both the LJ and energy meter plugged in - you know the sound Windows makes when you plug a USB mem stick in and it is found and the sound when it is removed - so its like, "found", "not found", "found" etc.

So there is no way to set the service or process to manual start like I did with the UPS?

I'll give your suggestions a shot and see what I come up with.

Thanks for your help.

RJE

[LabJack Support]

I have 4 powered USB hubs with max cable length between each one. The LJ, energy meter and UPS are all plugged into the last hub.

They don't power down when the computer is rebooted but a single powered hub would not either.

Interesting to note that I did not have the problem with my old XP machine (no UPS on the USB network though). It started when I finished building my new Win7 64 bit machine and put that into service.

What happens when I reboot with both the LJ and energy meter plugged in - you know the sound Windows makes when you plug a USB mem stick in and it is found and the sound when it is removed - so its like, "found", "not found", "found" etc.

So there is no way to set the service or process to manual start like I did with the UPS?

I'll give your suggestions a shot and see what I come up with.

Thanks for your help.

RJE

The sound being made is done when the device is enumerated or unenumerated. Windows should be taking care of that and finding the devices when the system boots. I'm not sure why it wouldn't be. Unfortunately there isn't a service or anything that controlls that, it's just part of Windows. One thing I would try is connecting the LabJack directly to the PC and rebooting and seeing if the problem remains. It could somehow be related to the hubs and there might be a fix you can do with them.