Keysight MSOX3104T minor niggles

[nfmax]

It's been a while, but I have just come across another niggle which I think might be a genuine bug.

In zoom mode, if I use the touch screen to position the zoomed part of the trace (which is so much better than trying to use the delay control, especially at high magnifications) it always seems to jump slightly when I lift my finger off the screen, no matter how careful I am.

[Howardlong]

I already posted this in the hacking thread, perhaps it's better here.

Basically, has anyone managed to get the recently released (FW 7.40) USB trigger & decode working in HS on the 3104T?

FS & LS work fine. Possible operator error?

Details here:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/dsox2000-and-3000-series-licence-have-anyone-tried-to-hack-that-scope/msg3609701/#msg3609701

[Howardlong]

I already posted this in the hacking thread, perhaps it's better here.

Basically, has anyone managed to get the recently released (FW 7.40) USB trigger & decode working in HS on the 3104T?

FS & LS work fine. Possible operator error?

Details here:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/dsox2000-and-3000-series-licence-have-anyone-tried-to-hack-that-scope/msg3609701/#msg3609701

Turns out it's a bug, USB HS trigger/decode doesn't work yet on MSOX3104T, this from KeysightCare Technical and Application Support:

We could reproduce the issue and found out that the 4000A x-series scope is working fine, but the 3000T x-series scope, which you use, is not and we also got the red lines. Therefore we logged a defect report to our R&D and they will fix it in the next releases. To set the priority to our R&D correctly, could you please let me know if you have any deadline in your projects that prevents you from doing your work or are you able to work with the TEK scopes while we are fixing the issue?

Thank you very much for bringing this to our attention. We are always looking forward to customers feedback to improve our software and hardware.

[2N3055]

You would think that customer that has to use Tek scopes while they fix their bugs would be priority enough, but hey, whatever...

[Howardlong]

You would think that customer that has to use Tek scopes while they fix their bugs would be priority enough, but hey, whatever...

FWIW, this was my response:

Thank you for your response.

I’m OK for now thanks, I can get by, but I much prefer using the snappy UI of a Keysight. I was looking forward to ditching the Teks 😉

Many thanks, Howard

[Keysight DanielBogdanoff]

In my experience the R&D team is pretty good & quick about getting bugs like this fixed, especially if it already works on the 4000 X-Series (which I believe share a code base). You can always ask for a beta release with the patch, we've been known to do that from time to time (no promises, of course).

[Howardlong]

In my experience the R&D team is pretty good & quick about getting bugs like this fixed, especially if it already works on the 4000 X-Series (which I believe share a code base). You can always ask for a beta release with the patch, we've been known to do that from time to time (no promises, of course).

To be fair, it would have been disingenuous for me to claim it was a showstopper for me when I can use the Tek for this job. My comment regarding strongly favouring the Keysight UI remains though!

[2N3055]

In my experience the R&D team is pretty good & quick about getting bugs like this fixed, especially if it already works on the 4000 X-Series (which I believe share a code base). You can always ask for a beta release with the patch, we've been known to do that from time to time (no promises, of course).

Daniel,

maybe you could help me with my question: I have MSOX3104T with full bundle bought in 2018.  I see now that there are new USB protocols decode/trigger, that would be interesting to me. My bundle has only USB PD decode/trigger. Is there any way to upgrade my older full bundle to full bundle as it is now, and gain new USB decode/trigger options ? And by upgrade I mean to pay some fractional price of the full bundle as it, considering that we already bought it once and only few things are upgraded...
Don't feel obliged to give answer, but if you could help, I would appreciate it very much, as I presume would Howard, and quite few of us around the world.
Lately there were many changes in licensing model, and quite frankly it is a bit confusing...
Thanks for your time and effort here, and if you cannot answer, I understand.

Best regards,

Sinisa

[Keysight DanielBogdanoff]

@2n3055 I'm honestly not sure. It would have to be a 1-off type thing worked out through your local sales/distributor folks. I know there have been a lot of changes in licensing over the last few years and haven't been connected enough to the details to know how they have decided to handle it. I highly recommend giving the line a call or an email and see what they say for your specific case.

[2N3055]

@2n3055 I'm honestly not sure. It would have to be a 1-off type thing worked out through your local sales/distributor folks. I know there have been a lot of changes in licensing over the last few years and haven't been connected enough to the details to know how they have decided to handle it. I highly recommend giving the line a call or an email and see what they say for your specific case.

Daniel,
thanks a lot for your answer. As I said, it used to be simple and now is both more versatile and confusing. Soon it will be time to extend my maintenance and I will ask then..

All the best,

Sinisa

[Howardlong]

Uh oh! This just in...

Unfortunately I don't have good news to share.

R&D looked into the issue with the 3000T x-series scope and USB 2.0 HS and found out that 3000T x-series scopes can’t support USB High Speed due to HW limitations. SW support for USB HS was accidentally added in the 7.35 GUI along with the intended and working USB LS and FS support.

In summary, USB LS and FS all work in the following.  As far as USB HS…
•   The 3000T Series FPGA cannot handle USB HS.
•   The 4000X Series has a secondary FPGA that handles USB HS in 1GHz+ models
•   The 6000X Series can handle USB HS it in its main FPGA.
R&D is investigating the changes to remove USB HS support from the 3000T Series GUI (targeted for the 7.50 release) while Marketing is reviewing the changes needed to customer facing documents.

My apologies for the mistake which we did in our documentation and software. This will be corrected soon.

Do you also have a 4000X or 6000X series scope from us?

Let me know if I can assist you any further in getting a 4000X or 6000X scope from one of our partners in the UK or with any other question. I hope we didn't loose your trust and you are still interested in ditching the TEKs

[TheSteve]

Wow, that is a pretty huge mistake to make.

[LaurentR]

@2n3055 I'm honestly not sure. It would have to be a 1-off type thing worked out through your local sales/distributor folks. I know there have been a lot of changes in licensing over the last few years and haven't been connected enough to the details to know how they have decided to handle it. I highly recommend giving the line a call or an email and see what they say for your specific case.

Daniel,
thanks a lot for your answer. As I said, it used to be simple and now is both more versatile and confusing. Soon it will be time to extend my maintenance and I will ask then..

All the best,

Sinisa

@2n3055 I'm honestly not sure. It would have to be a 1-off type thing worked out through your local sales/distributor folks. I know there have been a lot of changes in licensing over the last few years and haven't been connected enough to the details to know how they have decided to handle it. I highly recommend giving the line a call or an email and see what they say for your specific case.

I bumped into a similar situation and reached out to support.

I bought a MSOX3104T from the Keysight EBay store with the full app bundle back in May (2021). They were offering (and still offer) the old, discontinued full app bundle (interesting they can still cut new licenses for it even though it's discontinued). Since that bundle predates the existence of the option, it doesn't have USB decode/trigger included.

I asked Keysight support what the status was of the option (the collaterals about the option on the website are a bit all over the place, some claiming it isn't offered, others that is is offered including HS, yet others that is is offered, but no HS).

They were very responsive (always amazed by Keysight support) and got to the bottom of the issue quickly, but declined to add the USB option to my unit, based on the fact that I got what was advertised (fair), and the fact that the bundle had already been discontinued at the time of purchase didn't really play into it (more debatable).

[2N3055]

@2n3055 I'm honestly not sure. It would have to be a 1-off type thing worked out through your local sales/distributor folks. I know there have been a lot of changes in licensing over the last few years and haven't been connected enough to the details to know how they have decided to handle it. I highly recommend giving the line a call or an email and see what they say for your specific case.

Daniel,
thanks a lot for your answer. As I said, it used to be simple and now is both more versatile and confusing. Soon it will be time to extend my maintenance and I will ask then..

All the best,

Sinisa

@2n3055 I'm honestly not sure. It would have to be a 1-off type thing worked out through your local sales/distributor folks. I know there have been a lot of changes in licensing over the last few years and haven't been connected enough to the details to know how they have decided to handle it. I highly recommend giving the line a call or an email and see what they say for your specific case.

I bumped into a similar situation and reached out to support.

I bought a MSOX3104T from the Keysight EBay store with the full app bundle back in May (2021). They were offering (and still offer) the old, discontinued full app bundle (interesting they can still cut new licenses for it even though it's discontinued). Since that bundle predates the existence of the option, it doesn't have USB decode/trigger included.

I asked Keysight support what the status was of the option (the collaterals about the option on the website are a bit all over the place, some claiming it isn't offered, others that is is offered including HS, yet others that is is offered, but no HS).

They were very responsive (always amazed by Keysight support) and got to the bottom of the issue quickly, but declined to add the USB option to my unit, based on the fact that I got what was advertised (fair), and the fact that the bundle had already been discontinued at the time of purchase didn't really play into it (more debatable).

Thank you for joining in the discussion.

I also contacted Keysight support few days ago and just got answer.

I, for one, DID NOT expect to get it for free. I do understand that I got all options on the date of purchase and was not eligible for future upgrades under license I purchased at the time.

But I DID expect that in addition to all those changes in licensing and their apparent move to behave like software vendors and not the  T&M company, they would actually behave like other software companies do.

And that would be to offer UPGRADES for existing customers to newest license, for the FRACTION of the price, like it is customary in software industry.
Their quite snarky and condescending answer was that my solution was easy and that if I simply buy the NEW FULL BUNDLE (for the FULL price) and then I would get all new options.
Simple, right?

My answer to that is that I will be willing to give 10% of full price of bundle to upgrade from my previous FULL product to up to date version. It is only one protocol difference, after all.
I will be willing to repeat that at later date too, if I deem I need new options.
They can get that or take a hike.

It was their choice to move to software vendor practices. It is time to learn how it is done properly.

Don't get me wrong.
Both people from support and Daniel are great people and they give their best to help. THEY are doing AWESOME job.
It is Keysight policy changes that are failing both us customers, and Keysight applications and support engineers by putting them in awkward situations.

At this moment, I'm at verge that my warranty will expire in few months. Plan was to to pay for extension of service agreement for next few years, and to keep scope current with current versions of bundle (as if it was purchased today). That helps me with assessing it's value.  Only few months ago I could sell my scope as "full options top of the line MSOX3104T".
Now it is just a 1GHz scope with"some options".  Also If I buy a new one today (for another technicians seat) I would need to track which one is which...

These changes in company policy are probably good for Keysight profits, and they might be good or, at least, neutral for big customers. But for small customers like me, it gets harder to stick with Keysight. Competition looks better every day, parity in quality and features is melting faster than ice, and fantastic support means nothing if I cannot afford it or their solutions anymore...

Time will tell.

Best regards,

Sinisa