Worth buying a HP 16500B with Failed ROM test? -> Yes for me ;-)

[davorin]

Hello

I've seen a HP 16500B listed with a screen shot saying:

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failed    ROM Test
failed    Hard Disk Test
The failed harddrive test might be caused by a bad harddrive or an unformatted harddrive as I read it somewhere...
I haven't just found any pointers to the "failed ROM test" anywhere...just in the service manual: "Replace faulty CPU board" (o;
At least it seems to boot up, where the bootup code is surely in a ROM somewhere (o;


Ah yeah...almost forgot...can this model be easily changed to 230V AC?

[davorin]

Hmm...seems that there are even no schematics for the CPU board nor any ROM images available....

[nctnico]

If the price is right just take it. The ROM error may be nothing more than a poor contact.

edit: typo

[davorin]

Meanwhile I looked up some CPU boards on Ebay...

Funny though the CPU board with item nbr. 16500-69509 can't be found anywhere...only 16500-66509.

Does the 16500-69509 mean the spare part and the 16500-66509 the original CPU board?

[free_electron]

DONT spend money on a 500 system. they are worthless now. unshiftable. and cost more in shipping than they are worth.

Go for at least a 700 series. if you must have a 500 make sure it is a C version ( with ethernet built in and more memory )
you're better off getting a 167x or 1680x all-in-one than the 16500 series chassis with blades.

I've been sitting on a fully loaded 16500 series for years. ended up giving it away for free cause i needed space. Still sitting on a very nice 16702B.

[davorin]

Is there like a compatibility matrix, which analyzer card can be used in which 165xx model?

[davorin]

Well...too late now (o;

Currently have a Tektronix 1241....with no cables and pods (o;

So sort of minimal upgraded now to a 16500B with 3 * 16555A with cables for around US$ 50...not planning to use it for high sophisticated circuits...but also to see how programmable it would be via GPIB and Python...

Well...ROM failure it shows..but hopefully it is fixable easy...So far I was lucky in the past repairing HP equipment :-)
And if I can learn something during the repair process and let others here know...why not (o;

[DIPLover]

If you ever replace the hard drive, I have a floppy with the 16500B Symbol Utility on it I could image if you need to restore it.

[helius]

Is there like a compatibility matrix, which analyzer card can be used in which 165xx model?

http://www.keysight.com/upload/cmc_upload/All/MainframeModuleCompatibilityMatrixMay2009.pdf?&cc=US&lc=eng

[davorin]

Just received my 16500B this morning....and indeed...swapping the CPU board shows no more the ROM error....

Now waiting for some CF disks and CF-IDE adapters (o;

[PaulAm]

There was a LAN option for the 16500B.  Did yours come with it?

[davorin]

Surprisingly it did come with the LAN option....10BaseT (o;

Now have to look how to read out the 4 PLCC 27H256-45 ROM contents and compare them..might be a CRC issue here....

Apparently Mouser still sells this kind of OTP EPROM used in the CPU board manufacturedd by Atmel with item number: AT27C256R-45JU

[davorin]

After a long search I finfally found a floppy disk which could be formatted (o;

Now booted up first disk and trying the LAN method for bringing the IDE disk back to life...

Hmm...from the IP configuration it seems the former holder of the 16500B was NXP semiconductor ;-)


...okay...hard disk seems really to be broken..or even non-existent...as I haven't opened it up yet (o;

[davorin]

Definitively the ROMs gone bad....well...actually...when I compare the ROM images from the broken and the good CPU board I see that 16500-80016 and 16500-80017 differ...

Just created a TAR file containing the ROM images of a working 16500-66509 16500B CPU board ;-)
Don't be confused by the "_good.bin" file endings...


And before I forget....those small chinese USB Minipro TL866CS programmers are nice for such work....especially when you ordered one with the PLCC adapters as well...
Just a simple:

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minipro -p "AM27H256 @PLCC32" -y -r 16500-80017_good.bin
..under Linux to read out....write takes a "-w" obviously...

[davorin]

Hah....got my IDE/CF adapter today.....and after some several try and errors I got it working now :-)

Main problem was with the poor documentation for the IDE/CF adapter...saying that master was on bottom, and slave on top of the adapter...
Turned out it is the other way around when I testwise put in two CF cards (o;

The CF card which runs fine is an old Apacer 64MB card....

Now testing some more old cards.... and maybe getting this nice adapter here from Switzerland:

http://www.pcengines.ch/cf5hs.htm

Maybe could be fitted directly onto the CPU board (o;

[davorin]

This post will hold now updated infos regarding compatible CF cards...

The IDE adapter I used is from Delock: http://www.delock.de/produkte/G_91644/merkmale.html?setLanguage=en

Current CF cards working:

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Canon 32MB, FC-32M
Apacer CF 64MB
Smart Modular Technologies 64MB, SM9FLACF64M5
takeMS 512MB High Speed
MaxFlash 1GB, CF1G80M-R
Non-working CF cards:

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Sandisk 128MB, labelled SDCFB © 99, formats fine, but then total system hangs
Sandisk 256MB, labelled SDCFB © 2000, format and install fine, after reboot read error
Maxflash 4GB x120, CF4G120M-R, system crash when formatting
Kingston 4GB 40x, CF/4GB, Disk timeout
SanDisk 4GB Ultra 25MB/s, SDCFHS-004G-G46, system hangs after formatting
All PCEngines cards (1GB, 2GB, 4GB) from [url=http://www.pcengines.ch]www.pcengines.ch[/url]
The procedure ot install the 5 disks onto the drive can be easier if you have the LAN option than mentioned at: http://www.philpem.me.uk/elec/testgear/hp16500b/reinstall/

Once you've booted with the first disk and formatted the drive configure the IP address, move all files from all 5 disks into one directoy, fire up "lftp" fpt client under Linux, and do:

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lftp -u control 10.0.0.100 (or whatever IP you have assigned to it
cd system/disk/hard
mkdir system
cd system
set passive-mode off
mput *
Remove floppy disk, power cycle and enjoy (o;

[mikeselectricstuff]

Surprisingly it did come with the LAN option....10BaseT (o;

Now have to look how to read out the 4 PLCC 27H256-45 ROM contents and compare them..might be a CRC issue here....

Apparently Mouser still sells this kind of OTP EPROM used in the CPU board manufacturedd by Atmel with item number: AT27C256R-45JU

You probably don't need new ROMs. Chances are some bits have drifted back to their erased state, so once you have a good image you should be able to just reprogram over the old contents.
Also, you may be able to recover the correct data by reading with a lower supply voltage, to reduce the read threshold.

[davorin]

Problem is that those ROMs in the CPU are of type OTP....and with OTP you just bluse fuses out giving a "0"....so no way it could be restored to a "1"...

But I already have good images from the second board...and cross checked them...bad ROMs in other CPU board....also same error.
Will anyway order some AT27H256-45 OTP EPROMs today from Mouser...probably need 50 of those to get free shipping as they are cheap (o;

[mikeselectricstuff]

Problem is that those ROMs in the CPU are of type OTP....and with OTP you just bluse fuses out giving a "0"....so no way it could be restored to a "1"...

These will be OTP EPROMS, not fuse PROMS
The erased state is a 1, and long-term leakage will turn 0 to 1, so can be reprogrammed as 0.
If you do a bit check between your good and bad set I suspect all the errors will be '1's where '0's should be.

[davorin]

Ah okay...wasn't aware of that.....so I will try now to reprogram those 2 failed ROMs now (o;

[helius]

OTP EPROMs are exactly the same as erasable EPROMs except for the package. They save money by leaving out the quartz window and using plastic instead of ceramic.

[davorin]

Interesting...just reprogrammed those two failed ROMs:

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klingler@nuc:~$ minipro -p "AM27H256 @PLCC32" -y -w 16500-80016_good.bin
Found Minipro TL866CS v3.62.2
Chip ID OK: 0x110
Writing Code... OK
Reading Code... OK
Verification OK
klingler@nuc:~$ minipro -p "AM27H256 @PLCC32" -y -w 16500-80017_good.bin
Found Minipro TL866CS v3.62.2
Chip ID OK: 0x110
Writing Code... OK
Reading Code... OK
Verification OK

But didn't work for the first ROM (o;

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klingler@nuc:~$ minipro -p "AM27H256 @PLCC32" -y -w 16500-80014_good.bin
Found Minipro TL866CS v3.62.2
Chip ID OK: 0x110
Writing Code... OK
Reading Code... OK
Verification failed at 0x40: 0x4e != 0x00


[macboy]

Interesting...just reprogrammed those two failed ROMs:

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klingler@nuc:~$ minipro -p "AM27H256 @PLCC32" -y -w 16500-80016_good.bin
Found Minipro TL866CS v3.62.2
Chip ID OK: 0x110
Writing Code... OK
Reading Code... OK
Verification OK
klingler@nuc:~$ minipro -p "AM27H256 @PLCC32" -y -w 16500-80017_good.bin
Found Minipro TL866CS v3.62.2
Chip ID OK: 0x110
Writing Code... OK
Reading Code... OK
Verification OK

But didn't work for the first ROM (o;

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klingler@nuc:~$ minipro -p "AM27H256 @PLCC32" -y -w 16500-80014_good.bin
Found Minipro TL866CS v3.62.2
Chip ID OK: 0x110
Writing Code... OK
Reading Code... OK
Verification failed at 0x40: 0x4e != 0x00


Did you erase with UV eraser first? The AM27H256 is not electrically erasable (EEPROM), it is good old UV-erasable EPROM.

[davorin]

I never said it is UV (o;

The AM27H256-45 type is a plain OTP EPROM with no windows...

[PA0PBZ]

Verification failed at 0x40: 0x4e != 0x00

Looks like you are out of luck there, the byte in the rom is 0x00, no way you are going to program that into 0x4E.
Maybe this is where the original error comes from, did you verify the other roms before re-programming?