Agilent DSOX2024 Won't Boot

[LA7SJA]

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

I for one hope that this don't happens to any HP Agilent Keysight scope, but that is just me 

Johan-Fredrik

[Keysight DanielBogdanoff]

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

I for one hope that this don't happens to any HP Agilent Keysight scope, but that is just me 

Johan-Fredrik

I agree! It's the nature of the beast that this type of failure will happen with this technology and volumes this size.  We're working hard to minimize it and make fixing it as small of a pain as possible for the unlucky few that have to deal with it.

[LA7SJA]

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.

This new recovery partition, is it part of any of the new firmware? And how does it work?


Quote from the 70s "It's not a bug, it's a feature"

[borjam]

I agree! It's the nature of the beast that this type of failure will happen with this technology and volumes this size.  We're working hard to minimize it and make fixing it as small of a pain as possible for the unlucky few that have to deal with it.

Then, even though I am not a Keysight customer, and despite that I think that being present in a forum like this is great, I am going to make a brutally honest but constructive criticism: that naivety by your designers is simply unacceptable.

If the flash is so error prone it wouldn't harm anyone to make it easily replaceable. And, for situations such as this, it's mandatory to have a bare minimum boot environment in ROM so that at least you can replace a broken firmware. Accidents happen. A power outage can bite you during an update. Firmware can be corrupted for whatever reason, even "Alpha particle impact", as Cisco uses to call it. There are countless ways in which it can go wrong. With an adequate recovery mechanism, the customer will at most call technical support or even look up a support web page. What happens when that option is not available? Headaches, lost time and even money (seems, even though this seems to be a misunderstanding).

Last year I suffered one of those episodes with an expensive Firewire audio interface (Metric Halo). Suddenly something was badly corrupted and it refused to boot. After an email to the technical support they gave me a procedure that worked without faults. It booted into an old version of the firmware in ROM, and I could install the latest version without problems.

I know that many of the customers of high end equipment are used to support contracts but a refusal to boot without a proper recovery mechanism is plain simply bad design. Not intending to be nasty, but I didn't expect that from a high end manufacturer. And I'm sure that if I tell this story to a friend who worked in Santa Rosa several years ago he won't believe it.

Anyway, take it as a constructive criticism. Never underestimate the value of a boot loader in ROM including a firmware update mechanism, together with some firmware image validation. And, plese, for God's sake, do not take the awful PC firmware as an example. It's hard to do worse!

[nctnico]

I know that many of the customers of high end equipment are used to support contracts but a refusal to boot without a proper recovery mechanism is plain simply bad design. Not intending to be nasty, but I didn't expect that from a high end manufacturer. And I'm sure that if I tell this story to a friend who worked in Santa Rosa several years ago he won't believe it.

Well at every R&D department a fresh batch of engineers enters the arena at some point and all the stupid mistakes are made again.

[pxl]

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

I for one hope that this don't happens to any HP Agilent Keysight scope, but that is just me 

Johan-Fredrik

I agree! It's the nature of the beast that this type of failure will happen with this technology and volumes this size.  We're working hard to minimize it and make fixing it as small of a pain as possible for the unlucky few that have to deal with it.

How many years the device in question is distributed?

[Keysight DanielBogdanoff]

I believe the 2000 X-Series scopes were released in 2011.

[Hydrawerk]

Yes.

14. 2. 2011
Dave gets a WORLD EXCLUSIVE, a look at the new Agilent 2000 series oscilloscope being released TODAY.

[madires]

Some input about issues with NAND flash and solutions: https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~omutlu/pub/flash-error-analysis-and-management_itj13.pdf

Haven't seen any manual yet, stating that the device has to be powered every month for an hour or so at least

[bsgd]

Some input about issues with NAND flash and solutions: https://users.ece.cmu.edu/~omutlu/pub/flash-error-analysis-and-management_itj13.pdf

Haven't seen any manual yet, stating that the device has to be powered every month for an hour or so at least

Great read. Daniel, does Keysight implement any of this techniques?

[kaz911]

I agree! It's the nature of the beast that this type of failure will happen with this technology and volumes this size.  We're working hard to minimize it and make fixing it as small of a pain as possible for the unlucky few that have to deal with it.

Daniel - is there a way a fix could be performed as a "bundle" if you for example sent scope for calibration? As I own one of the absolute first MSOX's ever I'm kind of worried.... Maybe that was something worth looking into.

[wraper]

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.

Because it wasn't no boot issue at all.

[Keysight DanielBogdanoff]

I agree! It's the nature of the beast that this type of failure will happen with this technology and volumes this size.  We're working hard to minimize it and make fixing it as small of a pain as possible for the unlucky few that have to deal with it.

Daniel - is there a way a fix could be performed as a "bundle" if you for example sent scope for calibration? As I own one of the absolute first MSOX's ever I'm kind of worried.... Maybe that was something worth looking into.

You don't have anything to worry about, the hardware hasn't changed (except for maybe that noise inductor a while back). I've seen the numbers and breakdowns for scope failures, and we're in line with or better than what we've seen historically. Ultimately, all electronics have a risk of breaking.  Computers, phones, stereos, and scopes.  I wasn't trying to get people panicking (not that you are), it just seemed like a opportune time to bring up firmware updates.

[bsgd]

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.

Because it wasn't no boot issue at all.

Yes it was! All this nightmare started when my scope decided not to boot, and then I got a defective replacement with a PLL error.

[Keysight DanielBogdanoff]

I know that many of the customers of high end equipment are used to support contracts but a refusal to boot without a proper recovery mechanism is plain simply bad design. Not intending to be nasty, but I didn't expect that from a high end manufacturer. And I'm sure that if I tell this story to a friend who worked in Santa Rosa several years ago he won't believe it.

Well at every R&D department a fresh batch of engineers enters the arena at some point and all the stupid mistakes are made again.

It would be more accurate to say that we've improved the recovery mechanism.  There were error checking and recovery techniques used in earlier firmware, but we improved them to the point that now you'd actually see it happening as the user instead of having an unusually long boot time.

[bsgd]

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.

I'm still stuck with that repair bill!! But Daniel is looking into this, but havent got any confirmation yet that they will actually DO something to remedy my situation.

And I DID NOT forget how bad Keysight Brazil technical support is. I even called them yesterday and the local manager said 'sorry, there's nothing we can do to help. You either pay or you will get the defective unit back'.

[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.

Because it wasn't no boot issue at all.

Huh? I didn't even mention booting. 

His 'issue' is that his 'scope refuses to work (read the thread!)

His 'luck' (maybe) is that there's somebody on here who works at Keysight and cares about their public image. There's a lot of people watching this and judging Keysight's response.

[bsgd]

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.

Because it wasn't no boot issue at all.

Huh? I didn't even mention booting. 

His 'issue' is that his 'scope refuses to work (read the thread!)

His 'luck' (maybe) is that there's somebody on here who works at Keysight and cares abotu their public image. There's a lot of people watching this and judging Keysight's response.

Even though you didn't mention booting, I just wanna say that yes, my problem was boot related.

I had a perfect working unit that all of sudden did not boot. I sent it under warranty and got a replacement right before the warranty expired, with a PLL error.

IF the first unit booted normally, I would probably still have the original scope I bought working here.

[wraper]

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.

Because it wasn't no boot issue at all.

Huh? I didn't even mention booting. 

His 'issue' is that his 'scope refuses to work (read the thread!)

His 'luck' (maybe) is that there's somebody on here who works at Keysight and cares about their public image. There's a lot of people watching this and judging Keysight's response.

So you insist that everyone should be given free repair outside of the warranty? Free repair for no boot issue outside the warranty is offered because it is a known issue of the model.

[wraper]

Also frankly, there is not much of the fault on Keysight side. Yes, bsgd had bad luck with replacement scope. But it is not unreasonable to expect that the user within half a year had a time to check if the replacement unit is not DOA either. So probably is lying (I don't say this is the case) about unit being DOA.
From my experience working in warranty repair in the past, people who request warranty service often are BIG liers. They will lie through the teeth, insult the receptionist and so on when the warranty is rightfully refused. Like if the device is completely corroded and green inside, but they'll swear the service was at fault for this, implying he brought completely immaculate device.

[GlowingGhoul]

bgsd isn't entitled to anything. Keysight is living up to the terms of his warranty. For a little extra he could have gotten the insurance that would have covered him outside of the warranty but didn't.

That's not Keysight's fault. They owe him nothing.

[continuo]

That's not Keysight's fault. They owe him nothing.

+1

If he gets this sorted for him for free it is just out of good will on Keysights side. And yet he keeps bashing them in every single post 

[bsgd]

That's not Keysight's fault. They owe him nothing.

+1

If he gets this sorted for him for free it is just out of good will on Keysights side. And yet he keeps bashing them in every single post 

Actually folks, I went to the Comsumer Court in my city yesterday, as I said I would. I talked to the lawyer and this is considered, in our law, a 'Hidden Manufacturer Defect' and its a quite common complaint here. They asked for the paperwork, checked everything to see if I was entitled for the repair and yes, according to our law Keysight in this case should be held responsible. But I AM NOT filing a suit. Daniel has been VERY KIND and VERY helpful and I do believe what Im experiencing here is limited to the office in Brazil.

But folks please understand one thing and try to stop trying to put words in someone elses mouth: I haver NEVER bashed Keysight US (quite the contrary, please read my posts) or said I should get a free warranty or a free repair, or a free anything. I'm just telling my story so folks are aware of what might happen to them, bacuse it DID happen to me.

Imagine you just got a new replacement car under warranty, and it fails with less than 10 hours of use. Then you get back to the dealer and they give you a repair price higher than that of  a brand new car. Would you be happy? Would you fix your car? - Please put yourself in my situation and decide if you would be happy or not. Maybe this kind of situation would make you happy, and that's fine, but it doesn't work for me.

[LabSpokane]

Folks, if there was an unpowered scope failure phenomenon, it would be well known by now. There would be ton of infant mortality problems with scopes being sold through distribution.

[bsgd]

Folks, if there was an unpowered scope failure phenomenon, it would be well known by now. There would be ton of infant mortality problems with scopes being sold through distribution.

I agree and I beieve this is limited to a few units.