Why Is My USB-5680 Not Detected or Showing "Not Connected" in the Soft Front Panel?

Updated Sep 23, 2026

Issue Details

I installed the NI-568x driver software for my USB-5680 RF Power Sensor, but the device is not detected when connected through USB. In the NI-568x Soft Front Panel, the sensor status remains "Not Connected". The device also does not appear to communicate correctly in NI MAX, even though the driver installation completed successfully without reporting errors.

Reinstalling the NI-568x driver package did not resolve the issue.

Solution

This issue occurs when Windows stages the NI-568x driver package into the Windows Driver Store during installation, but the Windows Plug and Play (PnP) subsystem fails to automatically associate or bind the driver service to the USB-5680 hardware.

 

You can resolve this by manually forcing Windows to install and bind the staged driver using the built-in PnPUtil tool.

 

  1. Connect the USB-5680 to the computer.
  2. Open Command Prompt as an Administrator.
  3. Identify the OEM .inf file associated with the NI-568x driver in C:\Windows\INF\ 
  4. Run the following command: 
    pnputil /add-driver "C:\Windows\INF\<oem#>.inf" /install

    (Replace <oem#>.inf with the specific INF file name assigned by Windows on your system, e.g., oem166.inf).

  5. In Windows Device Manager, click Action»Scan for hardware changes.
  6. Verify that the USB-5680 is detected properly under Device Manager and in NI MAX.
  7. Launch the NI-568x Soft Front Panel to confirm that the sensor is detected and functional.

Additional Information

When the NI-568x software is installed, Windows performs driver staging by copying the required driver files into the Windows Driver Store and publishing the driver package as an oem#.inf file. Driver staging alone does not guarantee that the driver will be actively associated with connected hardware.

 
Automatic driver association may fail in situations such as:
  • Cached or stale driver indexing information from a previous device detection event.
  • Incomplete Plug and Play (PnP) enumeration and driver binding after hardware connection.
  • Existing hardware associations that prevent evaluation of the newly staged driver package.

The /install flag in pnputil forces Windows to immediately register the driver service, update the registry entries, and actively bind the driver files to matching connected hardware, overriding any stale driver bindings.

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