Electronics > Repair
Agilent 34461A corrupted flash
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Dr. Frank:
Hi Tim,
the model is also contained in the serial number, I assume.
MY547xxxxx is for 34470As,  MY545xxxxx for the 34465A, please cheek the Serial Number of your 34461A.
Therefore there might be no distinct configuration (model #) parameter.
The hardware platform for all 4 instruments seems to be identical. the 460/461 have the same Mainboard, as well as the 465/470 PCBs are identical, apart from the reference.
The difference between the lower grade instruments vs. the higher grade ones seems to be a different / lesser assembly, to tailor the different features in hardware.
See 'New 34470A review' thread, where we analyzed all PCBs.

The differentiation in features and also the options like Digitizing and Memory is probably set up by firmware switches / keys only.
I assume that KS implemented a strong encryption of all these objects, to prohibit easy modification.
The serial number as well will be encrypted I assume, and as The Steve already claimed, stored in different places.

Anyhow I'm very interested, how to enable the 7 1/2  digit display on my 465A, as I already found out, how to upgrade the reference to the LTZ1000A .
Frank
dc101:
Hey Frank,

Thanks, I'll check out that thread you mentioned. I'm thinking now that factory u-boot command might be some legacy code that is no longer used as the serial number showed in the help -> about menu, even before setting it with the factory command. My serial number starts with MY532, which matches the factory sticker and what is displayed on the screen.

I tried the SCPI command that The Steve mentioned, but as he guessed, it did not work. When I first uploaded new firmware and booted up the meter I saw something about detecting a new processor and taking a few minutes to update something. I wonder if the SCPI command would work when that screen is displayed?

The unfortunate part is I can't seem to be able to do a firmware update from USB or ethernet, due to the missing model number, which is preventing me from being able to get the firmware flashed to NAND. Even after uncompressing nk.bin, it still only loads from RAM. I wrote it to NAND, rebooted and read it back into to RAM and it loaded fine, so I don't think it's a NAND issue. Yet if I write nk.bin to NAND and verify the images with the CE bootloader, the NAND image comes back as invalid, while the RAM image is valid.

It's possible the issue might still be with pboot. I noticed after flashing the version from your meter, that the default NAND addresses are different from the 34461A. The RAM image was the same however at 0x84000000

--- Code: ---34365A
Image addresses. (0xdxxxxxxx for NAND, 0x8xxxxxxx for RAM)
        1 (0xd0400000)
        2 (0xd1700000)

--- End code ---

--- Code: ---34461A
nimages=2
image1=0xd0620000
image2=0xd2120000

--- End code ---
Dr. Frank:
I made some errata to my former post, and here's the correct link to the discussion of the 461/465/470:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/keysight_s-new-34465a-(6-5-digit)-and-34470a-(7-5-digit)-bench-multimeters/150/

some pages earlier or later, we already discussed possible feature switches, afair.

If I remember correctly, during the normal boot process, the serial number is displayed on the serial monitor.. and I did not blank my serial number inside the pboot dump file.


Frank
dc101:
So looks like the DIAG:OFINIT SCPI command worked after all. It didn't work immediately after getting the new cpu alert, but after repeatedly sending the command I noticed I stopped getting errors on the scoped. I thought maybe I just broke SCPI, after a reboot now I see it actually has a model number. For another test I ran *IDN? and this time it actually worked. The first time I tried this after flashing new firmware, my scope crashed and reset.
TheSteve:
Very nice that it worked! I have a different device I'd like to reset the model and serial # on. Any thoughts on exactly what was erased to lose the model/serial #? If the model/serial # are set the command certainly doesn't work.
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