Characteristics of the problem are that the control device is online, but the serial devices would stay offline and unusable. This is also characteristic of having a maxbuf/bytlm setting too low, so this possibility should be looked for first. If the maxbuf and bytlm values are checked and found to be adequate (current value of 45000 or higher) but the devices remain offline, check to see if the following patch has been applied (depending on which OS version they have):

ALPCPU1603_062 - Patch for VMS V6.2, V6.2-1H1, V6.2-1H2, V6.2-1H3
ALPCPU1604_071 - Patch for VMS 7.1, V7.1-1H1, V7.1-1H2

See related information section for links to the README files of the two patches.

This problem will show up most likely if a customer has taken a previously known working Digi PCI card and is migrating it to a new VMS server, or if they've recently installed a new processor on an existing system and now the Digi PCI card won't work. The problem could potentially occur in new installs as well, but the above two situations are dead giveaways.