This high quality
PCI extender card was developed for the test and the hotswapping of PCI cards. The PCI extender card allows a safe insertion and removal of PCI cards while the computer is switched on (hot swapping). The upper PCI slot is easily exchangeable, separately orderable and reduces costs in large scale production and testing.
How to use the board ?Before you remove the PCI slot card, switch the power on the PCI extender card off. This shuts down the tested board power lines and signals from the pc bus. Remove the board and insert a different one. Switch the power on again. The board gets a reset and all lines power up in a safe way.
General descriptionThe PCI Bus Extender provides a robust test environment with security fuses. These fuses provide full test capability while protecting the host system and UUT (Unit Under Test) from many conditions that may cause damage to the host system or the motherboard. A master switch, on one side of the extender card, switches all PCI-Bus conductors via relays and power supply, over the MOS-FET, to the upper slot. All operating voltages are protected by easy exchangeable fuses. It is possible to disconnect all PCI signals, with the PC bus DIP switch. This is necessary when the UUT (Unit Under Test) interferes with the PC bus i.e. a short ciruit. A LED-Bar indicates which signals are currently switched on. All operating voltages and eight more control signals are available on a 37-pin D-Sub connector. A temperature sensor which is located on the card enables a control of automated test procedures. An additional button generates a reset signal on the upper slot. The reset will further on be produced when the PC is turned on or off, as well as from the CPU.
PCIEXT64 Software:The settings, assigned by the CPU in the cards configuration header, are lost when the PCI card is removed or unplugged from the upper slot.
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 The PCIEXT64 Sourcecode shows how to program the PCIEXT64 under Visual Basic |
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For this reason, the software ”PCISETIO” ( MS-DOS ) or "PCIEXT64.EXE" ( Windows NT / 2000 / XP ) is included in the scope of supply. This software reprogrammes the I/O address, memory address and interrupt vector after the PCI Extender is turned on again. The PCIEXT64 Software is available as source code and allows the reading, writing, saving and loading of the configuration header in the tested PCI card. Additionally the software can launch an user defined test application on insertation of a new device (UUT) and providing a way to create a complete testing only controlled by the switch on the PCI extender. The existing software routines can be used as starting point for your own test projects.
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| Accessing the PCI configuration registers on the fly. |
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The test program detects all pci-cards in the system and puts them in a listbox. Double clicking on a list entry reads the configuration and shows it in a dialog box. Here you can manipulate the registers, save the registers to a file and reload them from disk. Or you can write the registers back to the PCI card. The saved files can be used as templates which are automatically transferred to the PCI card if you insert a new one in the upper slot. The test appliction is based on the ~LINK.QLIB~ the QUANCOM Driver Library. With the QLIB it is easy to create applications with Visual-Studio .NET, Visual-Basic, Borland Delphi or other modern compilers. Even an interface to MS Excel, MS Access or Sun Java is available.
HighlightsThe PCI extender card allows an inserting and removing of PCI cards while the computer is switched on (hot swapping). Since the lifetime of any electrical connector is limited, we made the upper PCI slot seperately deliverable and exchangeable. The costs in large scale production and testing are reduced dramatically, due to the fact that only the upper PCI slot, when worn out, needs to be replaced and not the whole PCI Extender. This is the reason why many companies are using our PCI extender card in the mass production. If the upper PCI bus connector is worn out, just replace it with a new one.