Power and Thermal Monitoring and Shutdown Conditions

The PXIe-5820 is protected against excessive temperatures and power consumption and shuts down in the presence of excessive heat or power consumption. When the module shuts down, it automatically loads a low-power, nearly empty FPGA image. Any user instrument driver session or FPGA I/O stops, and any program that tries to read or write to the module returns an error.

To recover from thermal shutdown, resolve the excessive temperature and restart the system, or reset the device from MAX. Check that the ambient temperature around the chassis is within specifications and that the device is receiving proper airflow. Make sure that chassis fans are clean and that filler panels or slot blockers cover any empty slots to maximize cooling airflow. Position the chassis so that inlet and outlet vents are not obstructed.

To recover from an over-power shutdown, restart the system or reset the device from MAX. Avoid running the application or FPGA VI that triggered the excess power consumption. Reducing the ambient temperature and improving cooling and airflow may also reduce power consumption.

Monitor temperature and power consumption in your application to detect shutdown conditions. To monitor how far the module is from the temperature limit, use the FPGA Temperature property or the NIRFSA_ATTR_FPGA_TEMPERATURE attribute. The thermal shutdown limit is 98 degrees Celsius. To monitor how far the module is from the power limit, use the Module Power Consumption property or the NIRFSA_ATTR_MODULE_POWER_CONSUMPTION attribute. The power consumption shutdown limit is 100 W.

Note Ensure your application has a wide enough margin to allow for temperature and power variations between your development environment and deployment environment. The deployed application may run hotter or cooler than in it does in development due to hardware differences or variations in ambient temperature, air flow, chassis positioning, adjacent modules, power consumption, and other factors.