Agilent 54831D modernising

[bigeblis]

I've done at least half a dozen XP phone activations in the past couple of months on this project, I can't remember if any were with just the original installation though. I definitely did several after doing a repair with a retail version to fix AHCI and ACPI.

I'm going to try to install the new system and drivers on the original motherboard, with the new motherboards in exactly the same steps, as well as the application, to see if this works properly.

[bigeblis]

According to my attempt, in the original motherboard to install XP SP2 retail system, can not be used. Although the program list, all the procedures and original system looks exactly the same, but agscop operation is a failure.

[Howardlong]

This evening I tried a little esperiment.

With the original board, P III CPU etc, I removed the two graphics/display cards and replaced them wih the best PCI graphics card I could find, an old HD 4350, which even sports and HDMI output as well as DVI and VGA.

Before doing is, I took some waveform update rate measurements using Agilent's own test criteria documented in the scope's data sheet. This entails turning off all measurements, single channel, no deep memory, no sin x/x and no joining the dots, I achieved pretty close to book figures of about 3.2kwfm/s. Turning on joining the dots halved that.

After loading the drivers, the main scope app runs and thinks it's an MSO8104A, so a good start.

This time, the waveform update rate under the same criteria was up to about 4.1kwfm/s, but this time joining up the dots made little if any difference, so it was using the card's own interpolation.

I did a few other tests, to see how reliable it was, and to check out the intensity grading, which is quite an improvement. I couldn't find any problems, so I increased the resolution from the stock 640x480 to 1024x768 which is standard for an MSO8000 series scope. In the past this has proved unreliable when using equivalent time sampling, but this time I couldn't get it to fail at all, which leads me to believe that the MSO8000 might well use the same acquisition hardware as the 54830D series after all.

Next step is to see if I can fit a third party LCD. I have both a VGA and an XGA panel with the right screen size, and VGA/DVI/HDMI driver boards for them, the problem is whether or not they'll physically fit.

[Berni]

That's interesting. Is it possible that it simply did not like the other graphics card, but works fine with a lot of the cards out there?

Also this makes is so that you only need a working driver for the acquisition board, everything else is standard PC peripherals right?

[bigeblis]

This evening I tried a little esperiment.

With the original board, P III CPU etc, I removed the two graphics/display cards and replaced them wih the best PCI graphics card I could find, an old HD 4350, which even sports and HDMI output as well as DVI and VGA.

Before doing is, I took some waveform update rate measurements using Agilent's own test criteria documented in the scope's data sheet. This entails turning off all measurements, single channel, no deep memory, no sin x/x and no joining the dots, I achieved pretty close to book figures of about 3.2kwfm/s. Turning on joining the dots halved that.

After loading the drivers, the main scope app runs and thinks it's an MSO8104A, so a good start.

This time, the waveform update rate under the same criteria was up to about 4.1kwfm/s, but this time joining up the dots made little if any difference, so it was using the card's own interpolation.

I did a few other tests, to see how reliable it was, and to check out the intensity grading, which is quite an improvement. I couldn't find any problems, so I increased the resolution from the stock 640x480 to 1024x768 which is standard for an MSO8000 series scope. In the past this has proved unreliable when using equivalent time sampling, but this time I couldn't get it to fail at all, which leads me to believe that the MSO8000 might well use the same acquisition hardware as the 54830D series after all.

Next step is to see if I can fit a third party LCD. I have both a VGA and an XGA panel with the right screen size, and VGA/DVI/HDMI driver boards for them, the problem is whether or not they'll physically fit.

Really interesting! I ask you how to solve non-original graphics, "agscop" operation of the procedures being given the problem? Or as long as the PCI graphics card can be directly normal operation?
I only do the original motherboard replaced GA-P43-ES3G, the system can run the point.

[bigeblis]

Today I try the "Howardlong" approach, I found that does not require the use of original motherboard and PCI interface card, can also get a "MSO8102A", although this type of Anilent has never been sold too.
I was on a 54833D for this experiment, the machine's hardware configuration for GA-P43-ES3G/E8500/4GB/INTEL 710 100GB/nVIDIA FX1800. After pulling out the original 65550 graphics card boot, the program can run normally (starting speed is much slower than the original), and automatically into the XGA resolution display.
I do not have a waveform update rate test (because I did not get the manual test), just a visual comparison with another 54833B, it is clear that "MSO8102A" is much higher. I hope Howardlong can share the test program, let me check the different video card waveform update rate.
Finally, this machine is refitted, lost the original deep storage options, but also because the motherboard replacement, the serial number has become garbled. Do not know who can share the deep crack type storage options way? Thank you in advance!
 

[bigeblis]

Then I found that I could not find the option to turn on 256 levels of brightness?

[Howardlong]

The Chips & Technologies driver I am pretty sure makes a mess of the registry which is why, when attempting to upgrade the motherboard, getting it to behave can be quite hard. I have noticed the same symptom, I can't remember the scenario though. I have dozens and dozens of versions of disk image backups at various stages on an assortment of boards over the past three months or so!

I am reasonably confident that forgetting about the C&T board pair is the way to go if you don't mind replacing the LCD.

[bigeblis]

I was considering replacing the original LCD monitor, it is a 8.4-inch VGA screen. I'm looking for a 8.4-inch XGA screen, and already have a possible supply.
Then, I need to FX 1800 graphics card on the analog video output from the internal access to the new screen on the screen, thus completing the conversion.
Finally, on the system migration, you can try to make changes on the machine, using Microsoft's Sysprep tool, I do.

[bigeblis]

I tested the waveform update rate using a 50 MHz signal with a 5 ns timebase setting and made a table where the MSO8014A data is from Howard Long and the five measurements are Freq / Vpp / ACVrms / DCVrms / Vamp.
You can see the performance of the graphics card to the update rate to bring additional enhancements to install FX1800 the MSO8012A, the maximum update rate from the HD4350 4.1K upgrade to 8.8K, while the open Conntect Dots are 4.7K, even the slowest, open Sin (x) / x, Conntect Dots and five measurement settings, but also from the original 0.2K upgrade to 0.5K, although it seems still very slow, but more original models, with more than 100% upgrade.
Therefore, I decided to install a better performance of the next video card to see the results.

[Howardlong]

This is the XGA display I have (AA084XB01). I don't know yet if it fits though.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/252635504458

I also have a VGA display ready (AA084VC03), that was from Amazon but the ad isn't there any more. For each display I have an appropriate VGA/DVI/HDMI converter for when/if the time comes.

[Howardlong]

Make sure the scope still works _reliably_ in ETS mode: I found that the app would crash or display nonsense in some circumstances.

[bigeblis]

Screen replacement model I have selected, is NEC's NL10276BC16, it is 8.4-inch XGA display.
I have not opened a long time after the conversion of the machine, so you said the problem did not encounter.

[bigeblis]

Using the GPU-Z to monitor the GPU load, found only up to 12%! So FX1800 performance has been very enough, there is no need to switch to a higher performance graphics card.
Then, continuous operation for 4 hours, no abnormal situation. The setting is to turn on Sin (x) / x, Conntect Dots and five measurements.

[Howardlong]

The problem I have found is that, particularly at 1024x768, and in Windows 7, but also at other times, the application crashed or produced nonsense in Equivalent Time Sampling mode. Sometimes it worked, but after a reboot it broke, and often it wouldn't be recoverable at all other than restoring the last working image.

I seem to have a reasonably reliable Vista image at the moment, but it still occasionally breaks on application startup when the relays start clattering. After terminating the app's process, usually by killing it, it will start bu it warns that a bunch of settings have been reset. These don't seem to be anything on the acquisition board, and all the cal parameters are still safe, it just seems to be the app's presentation parameters and scope settings. This is on an i3-3250 mini ITX board with 2GB RAM and a PCI slot where the acquisition board is placed. I'm using the integrated graphics (Intel HD 2500) and have no problem with its speed in terms of waveform update rate (I nearly hit 10k wfm/s last night using a specially crafted set of settings).

When I upgraded it to Windows 7 on this board, I was unable to get the integrated graphics drivers to install so it uses the OS's default VGA drivers which don't perform at all well with very slow, unuseable, screen update rate (as opposed to waveform update rate).

If you're seeing 12% CPU, I'd imaging your processor has 8 logical cores. The agscope app is single threaded, so 12% is pretty much an entire logical core. The i3 I'm using presently is four logical cores and runs at 25% when the app is running.

The reasonably-working Vista build is simply an upgraded working scope XP image doing an update-in-place with Vista Ultimate.

[bigeblis]

No, I monitor the graphics load.
In addition, I do not think it is necessary to upgrade its operating system to 7. This does not seem to bring any additional performance boosts?
Finally, I think that the use of native PCI bus chipset to do this upgrade is better, such as P43 / B75 this. P43 motherboard + XP system is very stable. B75 I bought the motherboard, and have not time to test.

[bigeblis]

Then, you mentioned the application failed to start, lost settings, I have encountered. On my machine, the cause of the failure is that there is a PCI card above the battery is damaged. In addition, ACQ board FPGA chip, there is a row of pins between the leakage situation. Solve the problem, there is no longer encountered this situation. Of course, the system did not upgrade, only upgrade the hardware.

[Howardlong]

FWIW, I do have a B75 board that I bought for just the reason you mention, a native PCI slot, but haven't go around to using it yet.

[bigeblis]

You can try!
May be able to get a relatively high performance, and there will be no stability problems.

[bigeblis]

FWIW, I do have a B75 board that I bought for just the reason you mention, a native PCI slot, but haven't go around to using it yet.

Http://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/agilent-infiniium-dso8000a-hacking-anyone-done-this/
See here that you have successfully opened all licenses. Can you tell me how to do it?

[Mrt12]

Anyone managed to upgrade the memory? I read in the forum here that the scope is equipped with 128M, mine shows only 2M (obviously, the previous owner did not buy the 128M option). But the RAM chips are all there on the mainboard, it should be possible to unlock things somehow. Any ideas?

[bigeblis]

Has been successful - but not including me

[Mrt12]

Any tips for the memory upgrade?

there is also the statement in the first post "There are a few other easy upgrades knocking around too if you do a bit of judicious Googling", but I didn't find anything. I wonder what other easy upgrades can be done?

[bigeblis]

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/agilent-infiniium-dso8000a-hacking-anyone-done-this/

Here is more detailed, but I still do not understand.

[Howardlong]

Attached is an xdelta3.0.11 patch file for agscope.exe 5.71.

Code: [Select]

xdelta3-3.0.11-x86_64.exe -d -s agScope.exe delta agscopeNew.exe

MD5:

3c8e68f5dc7dd21ba83375cdce706b32 agscope.exe
d59b2f6f5d46ece50e42303951b89688 agscopenew.exe

Code: [Select]

Byte offset agscope.exe agscopeNew.exe

0x001AEF1A 0x85 0xE9
0x001AEF1B 0xC0 0xB7
0x001AEF1C 0x0F 0x01
0x001AEF1D 0x84 0x00
0x001AEF1E 0x94 0x00
0x001AEF1F 0x00 0xC3
0x001AEF20 0x00 0xC3
0x001AEF21 0x00 0xC3

0x001AF0D6 0xCC 0x85
0x001AF0D7 0xCC 0xC0
0x001AF0D8 0xCC 0x0F
0x001AF0D9 0xCC 0x84
0x001AF0DA 0xCC 0xD8
0x001AF0DB 0xCC 0xFE
0x001AF0DC 0xCC 0xFF
0x001AF0DD 0xCC 0xFF
0x001AF0DE 0xCC 0xEB
0x001AF0DF 0xCC 0x05

0x001AF0E5 0xCC 0x83
0x001AF0E6 0xCC 0xF8
0x001AF0E7 0xCC 0xF8
0x001AF0E8 0xCC 0x0F
0x001AF0E9 0xCC 0x85
0x001AF0EA 0xCC 0x34
0x001AF0EB 0xCC 0xFE
0x001AF0EC 0xCC 0xFF
0x001AF0ED 0xCC 0xFF
0x001AF0EE 0xCC 0xEB
0x001AF0EF 0xCC 0x13

0x001AF103 0xCC 0xB8
0x001AF104 0xCC 0x01
0x001AF105 0xCC 0x00
0x001AF106 0xCC 0x00
0x001AF107 0xCC 0x00
0x001AF108 0xCC 0xE9
0x001AF109 0xCC 0x16
0x001AF10A 0xCC 0xFE
0x001AF10B 0xCC 0xFF
0x001AF10C 0xCC 0xFF