Computer freezes when running RESMAN with VME crate powered down

Question

I have lost the whole day today (thankfully it was only one day) trying to fix this annoying problem, I'm posting here in case someone runs into this same thing in the future.
Ok, the problem I was able to reproduce was:
1. Run RESMAN with the crate powered--> OK
2. Power down crate.
3. Run RESMAN: the whole computer freezes in the "Searching for Statically Configured Devices" step, no way to recover (reboot necessary)
Although this is the problem I was able to reproduce, the system also froze sometimes when not running RESMAN and powering down the crate for cards insertion or extraction.
My system:
- VME crate
- VME-MXI-2 in slot 0
- MXI-2 Cable
- PCI-MXI-2
- Windows XP Pro SP3
- NI-VXI 3.1.1 and 3.7, MAX 2.?, 3.1.1, 4.6.2, 4.7.4
It turns out MXI-2 cables are not symmetric, when I switched both ends between PCI and VME, everything worked as it should.
Here's another post of someone that had a similar problem (and whose answer didn't solve mine):
http://forums.ni.com/t5/VXI-and-VME/MAX-and-whole-​comp-gets-freeze-when-I-tried-to-run-RESMAN/m-p/17​...
Here's a page that describes the error: http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/53DC9B3C2BC​B6C7D862564800051EC9F
I was not able to find that page (I found it when I had already solved the problem), probably because you would never expect that a cable whose appearance is completely symmetric is in fact orientation dependent. And, no, my cable (NI original) doesn't come with any labels identifying its ends.
And here are some keywords to ease the discovery of this post using different terms
PC Computer Windows XP hangs freezes locks crashes Resman MAX Measurement and Automation Explorer MXI orientation dependant VME crate switched off powered down

Answer 1

This wouldn't happen to be a seagate GoFlex drive would it? I've had similar problems with that line of drives, sometimes to the point where everything stops working, and if I manually unplug it, the system catches up and starts working again.