Products > Test Equipment
Agilent 54835A scope (4 channel 1GHz / 4Gs/s) repair & uphack
stj:
no, your just getting lucky because your data packets over usb are short.
the via oppollo MVP3 chipset has buggy usb implementation - that's official.
i have that board in a tower - it served me 24/7 for very many years and still acts as a network backup unit.
there really isnt much i dont know about it.
inc the fact it can overclock the cpu at 125MHz if your ram is up to it. (7ns or faster)
Jwalling:
--- Quote from: stj on July 09, 2017, 05:20:03 pm ---no, your just getting lucky because your data packets over usb are short.
the via oppollo MVP3 chipset has buggy usb implementation - that's official.
i have that board in a tower - it served me 24/7 for very many years and still acts as a network backup unit.
there really isnt much i dont know about it.
inc the fact it can overclock the cpu at 125MHz if your ram is up to it. (7ns or faster)
--- End quote ---
One thing I do know: VIA chipsets were always bug-ridden POS. In short, they suck! :--
I have a FIC VA-503 motherboard right now I could test with - how would I make the bug manifest itself?
stj:
transfer lots of data in a single pass.
writing a shitload of stuff to a usb key will often cause the interface to hang after while.
i imagine any streaming devices like tuners will cause absolute chaos.
btw, the first intel chipsets with usb 1.0 had the bug too - it was in the design spec they where supplied with!!!
oops! :palm:
lukier:
nctnico: is 54835A the same architecture as 54381D (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/agilent-54831d-modernising/)? I mean does it use the ancient C&T graphic card?
If yes then there should be still some, albeit limited, room for improvement (in the PC department), instead of relying on the Socket7 motherboard that I guess is not really good anymore (performance, bad caps).
LeCroy's are better in that respect, as they only use a single PCI card to communicate with the oscilloscope board so one can upgrade as far as Windows 7 32 bit can get (even i7 Haswell with PCIe to PCI adapter). Other connectivity is pretty standard, LVDS for the LCD (I've upgraded mine to XGA), standard signals for the CCFL inverter and, on WaveRunner 6K, the front panel is just a USB HID device (a bit problematic on newest hardware, doesn't like Intel root hubs, so one must use a separate USB controller).
Maybe, because of different PC integration architecture the CPU processing power is not as important as in LeCroy's case. Still, more modern CPU and motherboard with SATA and USB would be nice I guess. I have no idea how the Agilent software would react to upgraded PC internals though.
Jwalling:
--- Quote from: lukier on July 09, 2017, 05:43:01 pm ---nctnico: is 54835A the same architecture as 54381D (https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/agilent-54831d-modernising/)? I mean does it use the ancient C&T graphic card?
If yes then there should be still some, albeit limited, room for improvement (in the PC department), instead of relying on the Socket7 motherboard that I guess is not really good anymore (performance, bad caps).
--- End quote ---
Before anyone starts talking WinXP on the 54810A series. ;)
The 54830/31/32A/D used 1GHz or 1.2 GHZ Pentium III processors on a newer platform without ISA slots. They did use the same C&T graphics driver chip, though. However, the ACQ controller is newer (In fact the older ACQ controller from the 54810A series is present but only used for power on functions, front panel control, and the scope's video frame buffer) I think upgrading to XP would be a problem as the driver for the ACQ controller would not want to talk to the old ACQ board.
EDIT: And I don't think the pin-out for the ribbon cable is the same anyway...
EDIT2: which wouldn't matter anyway. Duh. You'd have to find an XP driver for the OLD controller.
The picture shows the newer ACQ controller in red, the old one in blue
If one could find a newer motherboard (just to upgrade the hardware for performance) with an ISA slot (For GPIB functionality) it just might work.
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