Exploring the secrets of Agilent 9000H series scopes

[Berni]

So i have recently gotten my hands on a Agilent DSO9204H scope. Featuring 2GHz of bandwidth sampled at 10GS/s. Mine even came with a 512GB SSD built in to give Windows 7 Embeded that runs on it a nice quick boot time. But it was a bit of an adventure with the software on it.



The software that came on it was fairly old so it was begging to be upgraded. The Keysight website said the latest version works on all 9000 series models so i downloaded the 1.7GB and have it a shot. All went fine and it worked but then i noticed something odd, the scope suddenly went all the way up to 20 GS/s so thats pretty nice, but the memory depth only went to 40Mpts. As far as i know i should have 100M as standard. So i go look at the about screen to see whats going on with the options and i see no options and its saying i have an DSO9254A. Wait what? I mess around with it some and its pretty determined this is a 9000A scope. Well thats nice since the 9000A series is much more expensive on ebay. When i got the scope i did make a backup image of its SSD so i load the backup on to it and the old software again is saying correctly that its a DSO9204H. I installed the new software again and again it starts thinking this is a DSO9254A. I have no idea why this happens but it is most likely some sort of bug. It does make sense that both the 9000H and 9000A use the same hardware and i have verified both use a mainboard codenamed "Raptor"



But the thing is that the DSO9204H 2GHz bandwidth while DSO9254A is 2.5GHz. Sure the 500MHz is not much of a difference but why not call both 2.5GHz if its the same hardware. I had a bit of a look around the datasheet for both to compare the two and i noticed something else.



Notice that the 2GHz 9000H has the same rise time as a 4GHz 9000A. So i started to wonder what is the actual bandwith of my scope. At first i looked at the noise floor. When bandwith limited to 2GHz it met the noise spec from the 9000H datasheet exactly. But when not limited it was noisier than the 2.5GHz model should be but not quite as noisy as the 4GHz model. Since i didn't have a 4GHz source i decided to build myself a Jim Williams picosecond pulse generator to measure the rise time and get the bandwidth from that. I half assed put together one on the back side of an SMA connector.





Turned out the MMBT2222 transistor rated for 40V needed 180V to break it down so the output signal was pretty massive at 60V so that had to be run trough an attenuator to bring it down and messing about with it i couldn't get a pulse faster than 160ps from it, but then i found that a guy built it on a fancy PCB and got 150ps measured on a 32GHz bandwidth scope. Clearly this circuit is not fast enough to do what i need. Finally i went and bought a cheep 4.4GHz synthesizer that runs from USB on ebay. It claims to be calibrated and it does come with a calibration table on a CD with the units serial number so it should be flat-ish over its entire output range. It also came with a nice rigid coax SMA cable that i made use of too.



This now worked pretty well and it did spit out a 4.4GHz signal as advertised.I set up my scope for FFT and turned on infinite persistence while i made the synthesizer do a sweep from 100MHz to 4.4GHz. The result is interesting. The scope seams to be perfectly flat up to 3GHz but then it starts doing a strange dance up and down. By definition it is not a 4GHz scope since it dips below -3dB well before that. I was expecting to see it roll off as scopes normally do but here it actually climbs back up a bit at 4GHz. At this point im not even sure what to call it. Is this normal to see in high bandwidth scopes and it perhaps just needs calibration?



I have also tried it using different cables and in to different channels of the scope to see if it makes any difference. Those can be found here:
imgur.com/a/8fWn7
Turns out channels 1 and 3 have a similar response while channels 2 and 4 have a different similar response. Changing the signal amplitude didnt seam to make a difference, but interestingly this scope does not loose any bandwidth on the 1mV/div scale.

And finally the new software owes me extra 60 megs of memory that i used to have, so i went got it back with some interest on top too, unlocking the full 1Gpts of memory. Along with that came a few other useful features...well actually all of the optional features.



As one would expect the unit now thinks its an MSO9254B ....wait...what B? There is only an A model. Right? Well i have no idea why and how. Perhaps its a future product or something?

In any case if you are thinking of buying a 9000A scope STOP right now. Buy a cheaper 9000H and turn it in to a 9000A yourself, perhaps getting extra bandwidth along the way.

[dadler]

How did you "get your hands on" such a beautiful piece of kit? *drool*

I have that same 4.4GHz synthesizer and have found it quite useful. However, I don't have any way of validating its performance past 1.5GHz.

[Berni]

Well i came across a good deal for it and stupidly bought it.

For that RF synthesizer i can grantee it works nicely up to 3GHz, past that i can't be sure my scope does not seam to be all that flat after it.

What do you guys think? Is this normal for a 4GHz scope?

[lukier]

Could you describe step by step how to "upgrade" the model number (a bit unclear) and how you installed memory and other options? Is there a keygen available?

[Wuerstchenhund]

The software that came on it was fairly old so it was begging to be upgraded. The Keysight website said the latest version works on all 9000 series models so i downloaded the 1.7GB and have it a shot. All went fine and it worked but then i noticed something odd, the scope suddenly went all the way up to 20 GS/s so thats pretty nice, but the memory depth only went to 40Mpts. As far as i know i should have 100M as standard. So i go look at the about screen to see whats going on with the options and i see no options and its saying i have an DSO9254A.

I'm not surprised. The DSO9kA and DSO9kH are pretty similar hardware-wise (don't forget this isn't a true 12bit scope, it uses oversampling to get the additional resolution), and what you saw can sometimes happen when you go from a very old software version to a new one, as if I remember right there were some changes along the various versions that affect licensing.

Try to do a stepped upgrade from the old version that is currently installed to the next new version and so on (i.e. 4.20 to 4.60, then 4.60 to 5.20, then 5.20 to 5.21, and finally 5.21 to 5.50):
http://www.keysight.com/main/software.jspx?ckey=2488819&lc=eng&cc=US&nid=-32673.1042676&id=2488819

[Berni]

Yeah the 12bit thing is just averaging on an existing mainboard, but i would expect the software to detect it correctly since surely the mainboard holds its model number somewhere. Thing is that the units serial number includes part of the model number so any licenses become invalid because it thinks its an A model. Not a big deal since i didn't get any extra options with mine. Also the A models now seam to also have the 12bit feature so it makes the H series completely redundant(And yes its declared obsolete by Keyseight)



This 12bit feature is actually quite useful since most of the time you don't need more than 500MHz of bandwidth and most regular scope probes cant even go above 500MHz anyway. Turning it on really does clean up the signal a lot yet you don't get the problems of using the regular averaging mode where you have to reliably re-trigger on the same part of the signal enough times.

The model number "upgrade" simply happens automatically when you install the latest software. Unlocking all the options however takes a bit of modification to its DLLs to trick it. Not sure if its worth releasing the patching instructions for it. This is a high end scope that not many people have at home, but those are the people who this is for. Not the big engineering companies that mostly buy these high end scopes. They have the money to buy there own options.

[ifonly]

Hi, any idea how the DSO became an MSO.  I got all the features to work except that one on my DSO9104H.
Most strange thing was in the Acquisition my "Digital Sampling Rate" showed up once, and never again .

In licence I have a lot and then also "Demo All"

p.s. Great Forum by the way.

[Berni]

Hi, any idea how the DSO became an MSO.  I got all the features to work except that one on my DSO9104H.
Most strange thing was in the Acquisition my "Digital Sampling Rate" showed up once, and never again .

In licence I have a lot and then also "Demo All"

p.s. Great Forum by the way.

Perhaps there are extra delicate things about the particular board. But i would think it just needs a license key to enable MSO.

[porker1972]

The 9000H was the same as the 9000A, but with the high-resolution mode permanently enabled.

[mkissin]

Hi,
I have an MSO9104A unit, and would be very interested in knowing how you managed to unlock any of the options!

[tv84]

I have an MSO9104A unit, and would be very interested in knowing how you managed to unlock any of the options!

Can't you do it with this?

[darkstar49]

The model number "upgrade" simply happens automatically when you install the latest software. Unlocking all the options however takes a bit of modification to its DLLs to trick it. Not sure if its worth releasing the patching instructions for it. This is a high end scope that not many people have at home, but those are the people who this is for. Not the big engineering companies that mostly buy these high end scopes. They have the money to buy there own options.

Well... I guess not that many people are begging for it, but having the instructions somewhere never hurts...
So if you don't mind, I'm pretty sure some people around here would be very thankful !

[Berni]

Here is the patch for it:
https://pastebin.com/EPphbHBs

[salvagedcircuitry]

Does anyone know if the agilent 9000a and 9000h series share the same acquisition board across all models? Does the 9064a have the same board and populated components as a 9404a?

[Berni]

Don't think so. You need to go to the S series scopes for bandwith upgradability.