Agilent DSOX2024 Won't Boot

[skipjackrc4]

I haven't used my DSOX2024 in a few months, and when I went to turn it on today, I got a nasty surprise--it won't boot.  The fan runs, and the buttons light up as they usually do on startup.  However, the screen remains blank and the Run/Stop and Single button lights never shut off, leaving me to believe that it's hanging up somewhere early on in the boot process.  I haven't recently changed the firmware or anything that would lead to obvious problems.

It should still be covered under warranty, but I wanted to first check to see if anyone here has encountered this problem before dealing with Keysight support.  Any ideas?

[skipjackrc4]

Right after posting this, I noticed another thread at the bottom of page regarding the same issue.  Looks like it's off to Keysight...

For those wanting to follow the other author's experience: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/oh-no!-i'm-never-buying-any-agilent-keysight-equiment-ever-again!/25/

[georgd]

I'm a DSOX3032A user, the gear still under warranty and boots regularry but thinking how much will cost me if after warranty expiration period would not boot up my scope?
Well, after registering and entering serial number of my scope on Keyisght site then queried for repair costs and system said:

Repair Per Incident     US$ 2572.00

In last two years the couple of tens users reported boot problem on this and also on Keysight users forum.
How many DSOX2000/3000 are there?
Maybe worth to think about some form of self helping community in case of boot failure.
Repairing the flash corruption is easy to do if its contents has known so reading it out with JTAG adapter and save it to case of failure.

I'm willing to contribute in self helping project or pay to some crow founded project.

Georg

[borjam]

I don't know how many DSOX2024 are there in this forum, but definitely it sounds like some design flaw.

[Wuerstchenhund]

I'm a DSOX3032A user, the gear still under warranty and boots regularry but thinking how much will cost me if after warranty expiration period would not boot up my scope?
Well, after registering and entering serial number of my scope on Keyisght site then queried for repair costs and system said:

Repair Per Incident     US$ 2572.00

That's normal, pretty much all big brands use standard repair fees outside the warranty period.

However, Keysight also offers 'Repair Agreements' which essentially are warranty extensions which can even be bought after the original warranty has expired, and which cover the instrument for any defect that might occur during the coverage period. Repair Agreements are generally a lot less expensive than a single Repair Incident, in fact, you might be surprised how cheap they can be.

I bought pretty much all my Agilent/Keysight gear on the 2nd hand market, and aside from my DSO8k scope (which will be out of support in less than a year) everything is covered by a repair agreement for peace of mind.

[bsgd]

Right after posting this, I noticed another thread at the bottom of page regarding the same issue.  Looks like it's off to Keysight...

For those wanting to follow the other author's experience: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/oh-no!-i'm-never-buying-any-agilent-keysight-equiment-ever-again!/25/

I am the poster on that thread and can confirm we're going through basically the VERY same problem. First my DSOX2024 wouldnt boot. Keysight said it was impossible to repair and sent me a brand new replacement unit. The replacement unit was also defective and showed a PLL error on screen. But the warranty had just expired and now Keysight is charging me a little more than U$ 2.000,00 to repair the brand new defective unit they sent me.

This is definitely not good company practice!!!!

[bsgd]

I don't know how many DSOX2024 are there in this forum, but definitely it sounds like some design flaw.

I will have to agree!

[Hydrawerk]

I haven't used my DSOX2024 in a few months

How old is it?

[bsgd]

I haven't used my DSOX2024 in a few months...

BTW, this is exactly what I experienced. This was a backup unit that sat in storage for a few months. When they needed it and turned it on, it didn't boot.

I wonder what could cause such behavior. At least with my unit, once it refused to turn on, it was dead. I could leave it plugged in for hours and try to restart it as many times as I could without any success.

[skipjackrc4]

I haven't used my DSOX2024 in a few months...

BTW, this is exactly what I experienced. This was a backup unit that sat in storage for a few months. When they needed it and turned it on, it didn't boot.

I wonder what could cause such behavior. At least with my unit, once it refused to turn on, it was dead. I could leave it plugged in for hours and try to restart it as many times as I could without any success.

For what it's worth, my unit was plugged in the whole time, so it's not like it was the lack of power that caused the failure (not that that should be an issue on modern equipment anyway.). I'm hoping that it is a software problem and not a hardware failure, but since Keysight sai that your unit was unrepairable, I'm not too hopeful about that.

Oh, and my scope is about 2.5 years old.  Much younger than my 30 year old HP network analyzer that still works perfectly...

[skipjackrc4]

Maybe worth to think about some form of self helping community in case of boot failure.
Repairing the flash corruption is easy to do if its contents has known so reading it out with JTAG adapter and save it to case of failure.

I'm willing to contribute in self helping project or pay to some crow founded project.

Georg

Agreed.  I'd be willing to assist as well.  There are many of these scopes out there (because they're nice pieces of equipment), and if this is really a design flaw, there's going to be a big need in the next few years.

[bsgd]

I haven't used my DSOX2024 in a few months...

BTW, this is exactly what I experienced. This was a backup unit that sat in storage for a few months. When they needed it and turned it on, it didn't boot.

I wonder what could cause such behavior. At least with my unit, once it refused to turn on, it was dead. I could leave it plugged in for hours and try to restart it as many times as I could without any success.

For what it's worth, my unit was plugged in the whole time, so it's not like it was the lack of power that caused the failure (not that that should be an issue on modern equipment anyway.). I'm hoping that it is a software problem and not a hardware failure, but since Keysight sai that your unit was unrepairable, I'm not too hopeful about that.

Oh, and my scope is about 2.5 years old.  Much younger than my 30 year old HP network analyzer that still works perfectly...

Yes, I know lack of power *shouldn't* be a problem with modern equiment, but why sitting unused is? Makes no sense why it would fail for that reason...

All I know is that it was working just fine when put in storage. Upon first power on after a few months, it wouldn't boot.

[skipjackrc4]

Yes, I know lack of power *shouldn't* be a problem with modern equiment, but why sitting unused is? Makes no sense why it would fail for that reason...

All I know is that it was working just fine when put in storage. Upon first power on after a few months, it wouldn't boot.

I'm wondering if sitting for several months is actually the cause, or if it's just a coincidence that we both had the failure after it had been sitting.  With a sample size of two, it's difficult to know.  Have you found any other threads on this forum or elsewhere about people having the same problem?  I've only found the Keysight forum that I linked.

[Hydrawerk]

My DSOX2002A was manufactured in 2012 and purchased in 2013. Now in 2016 the scope seems to be OK.
The burn-in time successfully expired.
My 5-year warranty ends in 2018. https://service.keysight.com/infoline/public/details.aspx?i=COV
Buy you know, oscilloscope is like a girlfriend. It can die overnight, but it is not very likely.

[bsgd]

Yes, I know lack of power *shouldn't* be a problem with modern equiment, but why sitting unused is? Makes no sense why it would fail for that reason...

All I know is that it was working just fine when put in storage. Upon first power on after a few months, it wouldn't boot.

I'm wondering if sitting for several months is actually the cause, or if it's just a coincidence that we both had the failure after it had been sitting.  With a sample size of two, it's difficult to know.  Have you found any other threads on this forum or elsewhere about people having the same problem?  I've only found the Keysight forum that I linked.

No I did not find anyone else complaining about this, which leads me to believe it could be related to sitting for a long time unused, since most people use their scopes every week or so at least.

Or maybe like you said it really has nothing to do with sitting on a shelf at all... but it's certainly a coincidence.

[LA7SJA]

I found this https://www.eevblog.com/forum/repair/agilentkeysight-dsox2022a-won't-boot!/msg756627/#msg756627, and I remember at least two other treads. This is one of them:  https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/agilent-mso-x-2014a-continuously-restarts-(/msg636249/#msg636249.

Johan-Fredrik

[Keysight DanielBogdanoff]

Hi,

Contact the local support center! A no-boot scope should qualify you for a free repair regardless of warranty status!

It sitting for a long time shouldn't have any impact on why it failed.  We've implemented some recent stability improvements that should help recover and reduce this type of issue.  The sitting for a while doesn't cause the issue.

[georgd]

A no-boot scope should qualify you for a free repair regardless of warranty status!

These words should be engraved in stone! 

Georg
(DSOX3032A owner with  1 yr warranty remain)

[Keysight DanielBogdanoff]

I should say (before it's engraved in stone somewhere) that this no-boot free repair isn't necessarily going to be around forever and ever (we have no plans to remove it) and IT DOESN'T APPLY TO EVERY SCOPE MODEL! Right now, it's just for the 2k, 3k, and 4k scopes that were shipped prior to 2016.

[bsgd]

Hi,

Contact the local support center! A no-boot scope should qualify you for a free repair regardless of warranty status!

It sitting for a long time shouldn't have any impact on why it failed.  We've implemented some recent stability improvements that should help recover and reduce this type of issue.  The sitting for a while doesn't cause the issue.

This is the kind of support I would expect from Keysight. Great Daniel!

[Fungus]

This is the kind of support I would expect from Keysight. Great Daniel!

Yes, but let's not forget that Keysight Brazil didn't support him at all.

If he hadn't got lucky on this forum he'd probably be stuck with that repair bill.

[Monkeh]

I should say (before it's engraved in stone somewhere) that this no-boot free repair isn't necessarily going to be around forever and ever (we have no plans to remove it) and IT DOESN'T APPLY TO EVERY SCOPE MODEL! Right now, it's just for the 2k, 3k, and 4k scopes that were shipped prior to 2016.

In other words, it's offered due to a known problem which can cause these models to brick themselves?

[LA7SJA]

I should say (before it's engraved in stone somewhere) that this no-boot free repair isn't necessarily going to be around forever and ever (we have no plans to remove it) and IT DOESN'T APPLY TO EVERY SCOPE MODEL! Right now, it's just for the 2k, 3k, and 4k scopes that were shipped prior to 2016.

Does this mean that you have found the error and eliminated it in the 2K, 3K and 4K scopes produced after 2015? And if so, can you tell us what caused this and tell us how to make sure it does not happen again?

Johan-Fredrik

[Hydrawerk]

Maybe a bad Flash memory? I hope this happens to 1% of the scopes or so.

[Keysight DanielBogdanoff]

We've done a couple things to improve stability over the last year-ish. First, we put in a recovery partition so if the scope doesn't boot, it should at least be recoverable.  Second, we increased the robustness of the NAND ECC to help limit errors caused by NAND failure or corruption in the boot block.

So, there's not really a bug that we fixed. Instead, it's improvements to help mitigate future potential issues.