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Agilent 54835A scope (4 channel 1GHz / 4Gs/s) repair & uphack
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Jwalling:
One other thing -  IME the FIC motherboard won't work with GB Ethernet cards for some reason either. I tried a Realtek 8169 based card which I had Win98 drivers for.
Jwalling:
Something I've always wondered, but have never figured out. What does the battery powered SRAM on the ACQ controller hold?

I've been too chicken to disconnect the battery from a working scope to find out... :scared:

Never seen one that was dead either.
nctnico:

--- 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 ---
The 54835A uses a C&T CT5550 graphics card. I'm not a fan (understatement) of AMD and VIA but I have to assume HP/ Agilent did some reliability tests before deciding to use this particular motherboard for a high end oscilloscope. I actually found a service note from Agilent from 2005 which describes a recall to replace the existing motherboard with the VA503-A and put a VIN33 (latest hardware version) sticker on the back of the scope. I think upgrading the motherboard can be done but the acquisition and videocard will need a PCI slot. And there is also the limitation of the AT style keyboard connector in the casing and how much power can the power supply deliver? All in all there won't be many options to make the PC part much faster.

@stj: I'll keep an eye open for USB problems. So far USB sticks are working OK and if not then I'm quite sure I have a USB-PCI card somewhere in an old PC.
lukier:

--- Quote from: nctnico on July 09, 2017, 06:59:02 pm ---I think upgrading the motherboard can be done but the acquisition and videocard will need a PCI slot. And there is also the limitation of the AT style keyboard connector in the casing and how much power can the power supply deliver? All in all there won't be many options to make the PC part much faster.

--- End quote ---

There should be plenty of more modern options, there are Core2Quad motherboards featuring 2 PCI slots. You only have to be brave enough to take a metal nibbler and cut the ATX IO shield opening (I have no idea why Agilent decided to do their own cutouts, seems silly) :) Often newer processors have better performance/power consumption ratio so I wouldn't worry about the PSU that much (and you've gained some watts by going the SSD route, CD drive can be disconnected as well).

However, maybe Agilent software depends heavily on a particular motherboard and/or BIOS as is the case in some older Tek scopes (which are even worse as they use very custom form factor motherboard).
free_electron:
no need to peel the front label off to remove that probe interface board.  from inside the scope : between bnc of channel2 and channel3 you will see 2 metal clips. simply press those and the netire pcb including the metal stiffner pops off. you don't need to muck with the screw nor destroy the front panel....


as for the battery ont he interface board : that holds the attenuator click count and the self diagnostic / calibration data. if that bettery goes empty simply rerun the diagnostic.

you can launch scope.exe using the service command  " scope.exe /service" that gives extra options in the self test menu where you can set attenuator click and othe roptions
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