Software setup/Mainboard change for Agilent 16900A/16902A/16903A logic analyzer

[danielbriggs]

Does anyone have a copy of the Chips 65550 drivers that they have working on Windows 7 32-bit for a 16902A?
I've installed a version for XP from V2.4.7 I found on the web and although Windows begrudgingly installs it, upon reboot I get about 640x480 with 16 colours and everything seems generally very unhappy.

I get much better performance out of the Windows generic driver, but then the Agilent Logic Analyser software fails to install due to failing a video related check. (I've imported all the reg keys from an old XP install, so it's not failing because of that.).

Many thanks,
Dan

[ingowien]

I think I used the standard VGA driver from Win7 with the 65550. Performance was better than in XP and I always use either remote Desktop or  an external display on the other graphics adapter. But there have been restrictions that only two VGA drivers with similar features can be loaded simultaneously.
best regards
Ingo

[Hamster]

Confirmed, Windows 7 Default drivers work great on the 6555X video card.

Question.. I just got a 16903A , fubared HDD.. i was able to recorver the drive and all the data, system just wont boot.

I am unable to restore ANY cd to it, says invalid bios version... it is a Adlink 815G and does boot up with the Agilent Logo, but i cannot get the 16901/902/903 restore disks to run.

So, have we figured out the a v5.90 version install path for this frame yet?  ( i did a 1680A with AMD Athon II + Windows 7 with out issue, i assumed i could do the same with the 16903A, but seems to not be possible )

[Hamster]

hmm.. i got windows xp sp2 installed.. go to device manager, and i don't see the PCI-PCI Bridge

PCI\VEN_104C&DEV_AC28 Texas Instruments PCI2050 PCI-to-PCI Bridge, and behind that the PCI\VEN_15BC&DEV_0505 "Agilent Technologies 16800/16900 Series Analyzer (PCI-to-SVY)"

^ that device doesn't appear to be showing up ..

 

[Hamster]

OK, removed the bridge card, reinstalled it, now it sees it  , but now i got a firmware version issue with running 3.67..  says needs to be updated? going to re-install 3.67 as it seeing the hardware this time, maybe it will do the update.

ok, on re-install, it yelled, said it appears to be be agilent hard, but the disk image is bad, telling me to restore it..

but now, that the pci bridge is working, the restore dvd is properly restoring.

ok, Used the Restore Disk, and Then Installed 3.67.1008, system rebooted a few times, did some firmware updates, and we are passing selftests!


hope i can figure out how to get 5.9 installed.

i am thinking of going to SP3 + .net 3.5 and .net 4.0 and then attempt a 5.9 direct install ..

[Hamster]

Success.. v5.90.1104 Running on 16803A w/XP SP 3

Steps to Restore:

1) Use Agilent Restore Disk
2) Install v3.67 ( to make sure firmware is up to date )
3) Reboot
4) Install XP SP3
5) Reboot
6) Install .net 3.5 sp1
7) Reboot
Install .net 4.0
9) Reboot
10) Install 5.90.1104
11) Reboot

-- Done --

[gslick]

Success.. v5.90.1104 Running on 16803A w/XP SP 3

Steps to Restore:

1) Use Agilent Restore Disk
2) Install v3.67 ( to make sure firmware is up to date )
3) Reboot
4) Install XP SP3
5) Reboot
6) Install .net 3.5 sp1
7) Reboot
Install .net 4.0
9) Reboot
10) Install 5.90.1104
11) Reboot

-- Done --

I don't think it is necessary to first install version 3.67 to update the FPGAs if necessary before installing version 5.90. It's been a while since I have gone through the software installation process on a blank hard drive on a 16900A / 16902A / 16903A. As far as I can remember during the installation of version 5.90 it will check the FPGA versions and update them if necessary.

[Hamster]

Does anybody have a link to the 5.40 Install?

Also, It seems the hardware check is not in the agHwInstall... only the Registry check, reviewing the decompile, the SecureId seems to be a bypass of some sort, need to review decompile more.

[Hamster]

Update:

So, the "Main Frame ID" is stored in the system Bios chip, it is required for the service to determine what type of frame it is.

I have the Bios images for a 1680A/D and 16903A for the same 815 Motherboard, I upgraded my 1680A and 1680AD to have a newer pc motherboard, and used one of the 1680 motherboards in a 16903a and was greeted with the "invalid frame id" , so did some checking, and found the details in the bios chips.

Also, the 16903A service will NOT start if the LCD is plugged in, and the Keyboard is not plugged in.

I am also looking for a spare 16902/3A Front Bezel,  I received a unit that was drop kicked by fedex and totally smashed in. I have been able to replace the LCD panel, and its all functional, but i need a bezel now.

[Hamster]

Just picked up a 16802A , the hdd was toast ( well, more like had a hole thru it.. )

It had the M-890 Motherboard and 4gb of ram, very clean.

installed a new SSD, fresh copy of Windows 7 SP1 , installed .net 4.0 , dump the bios and noticed no system id in the bios...  went forward with install and got no where fast... it was not happy.. Missing drives for the PLX 232... i was able to locate working drivers for this, and installed, and then did a re-install, got error about frame id... 

i ended up using the "agframeoverride" posted earlier and bam, everything worked...

However, it comes up as a 16902A   and works without issue

[gslick]

However, it comes up as a 16902A   and works without issue

Interesting that it reports itself as a 16902A. The 16900A, 16902A, and 16903A were never available with the M-890 motherboard, only later versions of the 16901A, the 16902B, and 16800A models.

As far as I know normally you can only use the 16800A versions of the 16910A and 16911A analyzer modules with the 16800A models. My guess is that there is something in the analyzer module EEPROMs that identify them as 16800A versions. As your analyzer now reports itself as a 16902A with a 16911A analyzer module, I wonder if it would recognize and work with a 1675x analyzer module.

Is your 16802A analyzer module already licensed at the max 32M-Sample / 500MHz ?

[Hamster]

However, it comes up as a 16902A   and works without issue

Interesting that it reports itself as a 16902A. The 16900A, 16902A, and 16903A were never available with the M-890 motherboard, only later versions of the 16901A, the 16902B, and 16800A models.

As far as I know normally you can only use the 16800A versions of the 16910A and 16911A analyzer modules with the 16800A models. My guess is that there is something in the analyzer module EEPROMs that identify them as 16800A versions. As your analyzer now reports itself as a 16902A with a 16911A analyzer module, I wonder if it would recognize and work with a 1675x analyzer module.

Is your 16802A analyzer module already licensed at the max 32M-Sample / 500MHz ?

This is the later Serial # 16802A , after opening it up, it was very clean, (except the destroyed HDD mount from the scrapper selling it ) after fixing the HDD mount plate ( unmangling it ) , i put in a 40gb SSD.. and its working great.

The Card when i removed it had 16911 and is identical to a 16911 i already had, but it only the base , but i already unlocked it to 32M/500mhz.

So this works on a 16802A to unlock it into a 16902A  ( I don't have Option 103 ) so no touch screen, and the EXT Display Switching doesn't seem to work.

I have also tested a 16752A and it worked fine, fully detected, fully operational...


( per post # 63 from ingowien: )

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\AgMachineInfo]
"AgFrameOverrideKey1"=dword:483c4aa9
"AgFrameOverrideKey2"=dword:3900384e
"AgFrameOverrideKey3"=dword:5af7983e
"AgFrameOverrideKey4"=dword:82100f65
"AgFrameModelNumberOverride"="16900"


16911A that came in the 16802A Board ID Bits: A:1,2,4,5,6 Jumpered, 3 Open, B: 1,2,3,4,6 Jumpered, 5 Open
16911A that came out of a 16903A Board ID Bits: A:1,2,4,5,6 Jumpered, 3 Open, B: 1,2,3,4,5 Jumpered, 6 Open

Board has NO identifiers that its for a 16800 Series Frame.


I wish i could figure out where this stuck bit is:  ( this is for my spare 16911 card, not the one that came in the 16802 )

16911A Logic Analyzer(A) running...
  Analyzer Chip Memory Bus Test running...
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=00000001, act=00001001
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=00000002, act=00001002
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=00000004, act=00001004
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=00000008, act=00001008
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=00000010, act=00001010
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=00000020, act=00001020
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=00000040, act=00001040
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=00000080, act=00001080
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=00000100, act=00001100
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=00000200, act=00001200
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=00000400, act=00001400
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=00000800, act=00001800
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=00002000, act=00003000
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=00004000, act=00005000
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=00008000, act=00009000
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=00010000, act=00011000
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=00020000, act=00021000
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=00040000, act=00041000
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=00080000, act=00081000
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=00100000, act=00101000
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=00200000, act=00201000
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=00400000, act=00401000
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=00800000, act=00801000
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=01000000, act=01001000
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=02000000, act=02001000
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=04000000, act=04001000
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=08000000, act=08001000
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=10000000, act=10001000
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=20000000, act=20001000
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=40000000, act=40001000
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=80000000, act=80001000
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=FFFFEFFF, act=FFFFFFFF
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Error, nChip 0, nPort 0, bits=00001000
  ...Analyzer Chip Memory Bus Test ended. Result: Failed***
...16911A Logic Analyzer(A) ended. Result: Failed***

I could recover a 16911 Card... I already replaced the Ram with no affect.

[Hamster]

Just picked up a NIB 16902B with M890 Raptor and working win7 image on SSD, its interesting how much the inside of this unit changed from the other 169xxA units.

[gslick]

Just picked up a NIB 16902B with M890 Raptor and working win7 image on SSD, its interesting how much the inside of this unit changed from the other 169xxA units.

Did you grab this one?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/265223690025

I had been watching that one for a while as the price was gradually lowered over the last 4 months. If I didn't already have more than one M890 motherboard version 16901A / 16902B I would have  been very tempted to buy that one myself. That seems like a decent deal in the current market.

The M890 motherboard Windows 7 SSD versions are a lot nicer than the earlier Windows XP versions. It's something around a minute from power on to fully booted and logic analyzer application running, compared to a lot longer on the earlier versions. Also, nice to have the DVI video output on the M890 motherboard if you want to use an external monitor instead of VGA output.

[Hamster]

Yep... It was pretty much 100% new.. it got a little beat up in shipping ( UPS Dropped it on one side so it bent one of the feet and caused a bunch of cables to get unplugged, but the display didn't break which was good. i imaged the HDD and swapped out the HDD to a newer larger one, now I have two 16xxx units with M890 Boards, I also have a few 1680AD(s) that i installed more modern PCB(s) in that work good for portable units, the 16852 i have is nice, i wish it had 2 slots, i may take my 16902A that has a busted bezel and try to hack a modern MB into it and try the registry hacks, I think the M890 Raptor units have Serial EEPROMS on the FPGA board stating what time of frame they are as the older XP units had the data in the system bios chip ( as posted earlier )

I heavily use these on my twitch feeds when fixing boards, its a very nice to have a faster unit with 1gig ethernet.

[MarkL]

...
I wish i could figure out where this stuck bit is:  ( this is for my spare 16911 card, not the one that came in the 16802 )

16911A Logic Analyzer(A) running...
  Analyzer Chip Memory Bus Test running...
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=00000001, act=00001001
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=00000002, act=00001002
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=00000004, act=00001004
 ...
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=80000000, act=80001000
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Failed, nChip 0, nPort 0, exp=FFFFEFFF, act=FFFFFFFF
      Slot A, Analysis Chip Data Bit Error, nChip 0, nPort 0, bits=00001000
  ...Analyzer Chip Memory Bus Test ended. Result: Failed***
...16911A Logic Analyzer(A) ended. Result: Failed***

I could recover a 16911 Card... I already replaced the Ram with no affect.

Here's a hint from the Service Guide:

Analyzer Chip Memory Bus Test. The purpose of this test is to check the Analysis chip memory busses that go between the Analysis chips and the Memory Controller FPGAs.

The stuck bit might be a broken trace between one of the acquisition ASICs and its memory controller.  Broken traces are fairly common on 1675x cards and are caused by something corrosive leaching from the plastic runner adhesive.  I've removed the runners from all my cards.

I would check the continuity using (very) sharp probes from via to via on all the Analyzer Chip Memory Bus lines between the two chips.  There are two buses, and I don't know which one is associated with "nChip 0".  If the copper is good it should be around an ohm or less.  I've outlined where the two buses run, attached.  I can't tell if there are any inner-layer traces for these buses, but I can say there aren't on the 1675x cards.

Sorry for the bad picture quality.  I don't have any 169xx cards and I snatched a photo from ebay.

[Hamster]

nChip0 is the upper portion, i did pull a ram chip and confirmed nChip0 fully errored out, replacing the ram returned it the same state.. i had already pulled the runners and inspected and saw no corrosion..  the ram modules are connected via inner layers to the memory controller.

[deanclaxton]

Digging up an old thread I know, but would anyone know if the Nitro M880 motherboard could be installed in a 16902A analyser? Or are there better options to upgrade a 16902A to boost performance and maybe run Windows 7.

EDIT : looks like the rear panel cutouts are different so that is a negative (without cutting up the rear panel)

[gslick]

Digging up an old thread I know, but would anyone know if the Nitro M880 motherboard could be installed in a 16902A analyser? Or are there better options to upgrade a 16902A to boost performance and maybe run Windows 7.

EDIT : looks like the rear panel cutouts are different so that is a negative (without cutting up the rear panel)

Yeah, the horizontal layout of the three audio jacks on the Radisys SC815E, Motorola VP22, and ADLINK M-815G motherboards make it difficult to find any mechanically compatible drop in motherboard replacement. Most motherboards that are any newer seem to have switched to a vertical layout of the audio jacks. Things are moved around even more between the Radisys SC815E, Motorola VP22, and ADLINK M-815G motherboards and the Intel D915GUX and ADLINK M-880 motherboards.

My own opinion is that it is not really worth the effort to try to modernize the 16900A / 16902A / 16903A logic analyzers with hardware upgrades for any improvement you might get in return.

I picked up a 16902A a couple of months ago for what seemed like a fairly reasonable deal, maybe because it was missing a hard drive. While I was adding a hard drive and installing the software, I did some experiments. I found that for at least initial power on to application fully up and running it made very little difference swapping from an ATA hard drive to a SATA SSD attached to an SIL3112 PCI SATA controller. Not enough to be worth the bother. I found a much bigger improvement (or rather a lack of a slowdown) when reinstalling the factory XP SP2 image and the 3.67 version of the application software, instead of upgrading the factory XP SP2 image to SP3 and the 5.90 version of the application software. Something in SP3 seems to really slow down the full boot up to fully ready process. It doesn't seem to be disk bound.

The best usability experience might be to go with the XP SP2 and 3.67 versions, add the 1Gb option network card, and run the application software over the network from a much newer and faster PC, with a nice large monitor. This would be on an isolated network switch, so not much concern about the lack of security updates being installed on the XP SP2 system. I recently picked up a Dell Precision 3420 small form factor PC to use for this purpose. Cheaper than what would probably be spent trying to shoehorn any motherboard upgrade into the LA chassis, and with a better usability experience, at the cost of a little more bench space.

[deanclaxton]

Good Stuff! I won the 16902A, so I'll be giving this a go when I get it. It has 2 x 16950A cards in it. I'll be looking for some termination adapters if anyone has any to suit, so I can make up a new 65C02 adapter board for it and try get Phils inverse assembler running (I've posted about this in the inverse assembler thread).

It's got be be faster than the HP 16602A I'm currently using (turn it on, make a cup of tea, check if the X11 connection is available, tinker around with something else for a bit, try it again......). Once booted it's actually quite useable though.

[gslick]

I just did a quick power up timing test on a 16902A with the standard ADLINK M-815G, 1GHz PIII, 512MB motherboard.

The missing hard drive on this one was replaced with an HDS724040KLAT80 Hitachi Deskstar 7K400. That is a 400GB, 7200 RPM hard drive, with an 8MB buffer. I found that I had to soft resize the capacity down to around 120GB, otherwise the drive image restoration from the 16900-14121 recovery DVD would not complete successfully.

The 16900-14121 recovery DVD restores an XP SP2 image (with critical updates though 10 Jan 2007, according to the DVD label). After that I installed the 3.67.1008 version of the logic analyzer software. No other software updates were installed.

I set the system to auto login so there would be no pause at a login screen.

I found that it took around 1:40 minute total from pressing the power button to when logic analyzer service initialization was complete (that takes some time), and then to when the logic analyzer application was fully up and running.

From my notes, when I previously tried updating to XP SP3 after the 16900-14121 recovery DVD restores the XP SP2 image, and then installed the 5.90.1104 version of the logic analyzer software, it took somewhere around 4:15 minutes total from pressing the power button to when the logic analyzer application was fully up and running, with the same hardware configuration. Replacing the ATA hard drive with a SATA SSD attached to an SIL3112 PCI SATA controller only saved around 15 seconds.

Sometime I'll have to do similar power up timing tests with Intel D915GUX and ADLINK M-880 motherboard versions of the 168xxA / 16901A / 16902B with XP SP3 and 5.90.1104, and also ADLINK M-890 motherboard versions running 64-bit Windows Embedded Standard 7. If I remember correctly the ADLINK M-890 motherboard versions booting from a SATA SSD were fully ready somewhere between 1 and 2 minutes from power on. Those are by far the nicest versions.

[deanclaxton]

Is there much advantage in going to the later version of the Agilent suite?

It will be interesting to see how much a little more ram would help.

[gslick]

Is there much advantage in going to the later version of the Agilent suite?

It will be interesting to see how much a little more ram would help.

I haven't taken a detailed look at the differences between the 3.67.1008 and 5.90.1104 versions. Looking at the release notes would probably be a good place to start. There might be some of the later analyzer modules and analysis software options that require the newer version.

The ADLINK M-815G motherboard is limited to 512MB maximum. The newer Intel D915GUX, ADLINK M-880, and ADLINK M-890 support up to 4GB (the available RAM may be may be closer to 3GB on the Intel D915GUX).

Logic Analyzer Application Software Version 03.67 (July 2007) Readme
https://www.keysight.com/us/en/assets/9018-19105/release-notes/9018-19105.html

Agilent Logic and Protocol Analyzer Software (32-bit Application)
Version 5.90.1100 – September 2015 Release Notes
https://www.keysight.com/us/en/assets/9018-07879/release-notes/9018-07879.pdf

[deanclaxton]

Looks like the 5.9 release supports the U series stuff - the 3.67 supports the modules I'll have so that should be alright. It will be interesting to see what version is installed when I get it.

Hopefully the speed will be ok - like it must have been useable back in the day mustn't it? I probably should have gone for a 16902B, but this was local (which is quite rare) and a 16902B would have cost me USD$440 just for the international shipping alone (I'd been looking at one that has the M880 in it).

I'll see how it goes when I get it I guess!

[ahakman]

Is the v4.44 software available anywhere other than by asking keysight? I don't know why they don't post it on their site.

My actual LA has 4.00 and I'd like to look at saved files offline on another machine, Trying to open them with v 3.67 of the sofware it just crashes when opening. V 5.90 seems like a general PIA