Tektronix TLA7000 series CPU, memory and OS upgrade useful?

[MindBender]

Hi everyone,

My Tektronix TLA7012 logic analyzer runs Windows XP on its Pentium M CPU with 1GiB of RAM. As a measurement instrument it works fine, so there is no real need. But if I understood correctly, these instruments are still being sold, albeit with an i5 CPU @2.7GHz, 8GiB of RAM running Windows 7.

The CPU, even though it's a mobile type, is socketed. It is useful to upgrade this instrument with an i5 CPU, as much RAM I can fit and Windows 7? Or even Windows 10? Has anybody even done this?

Cheers,

Robert.

[Jwalling]

Windows 10?! Why would you want to downgrade your machine?

[Scratch.HTF]

How about a project to convert test equipment to run on Linux?

[nctnico]

I wouldn't bother 'upgrading'. A newer Windows version is more like a downgrade than an upgrade due to needing more resources. A useful upgrade will be an SSD and more memory. Don't expect the software to become any faster though. The software is sloooow by design and it doesn't load the CPU 100%.

[MindBender]

That's a sensible suggestion. An SSD is easy to install, just like RAM, and it will probably do a lot more than a faster CPU, with all the risks attached to installing it and the BIOS not supporting it.

[DaJMasta]

Yeah, the swap up of the OS is a lot harder of a sale in my book because of the potential compatibility issues - even if the current version is similar, there could be some small difference on the main board or interface method that doesn't support the older logic analyzer configuration with current drivers.... then you've got to go hack through them yourself.

That said, since it was designed to work on XP and much more meager resources, scaling to the top class parts that will fit in the motherboard is probably pretty decent.  You want to check TDP and stuff as well, but swapping up to a better processor supported by the chipset (if it's a third party PC module, you can probably verify what steppings and cores are supported), maxing out the memory at its fastest speed grade supported, and swapping the drive for a solid state disk of some sort (parallel ATA interfaces can still only go so fast, but the seek times will drop dramatically) are all decent options and should be very cheap to do.  It's only really going to improve load times and computational tasks - nothing to do with capturing data or offloading it to the PC for processing and display - but in some cases that can be a really nice performance increase.

There are potential benefits to newer hardware and operating systems, but with the potential for driver issues, the overall extra cost increase, and the fact that it doesn't improve much of the functionality of the instrument that exists outside of the PC portion, it rarely seems worth it, in my eyes.

[MindBender]

Ok, just for completeness: Not all TLA7012 are fitted with the same main board. I don't know the manufacturer of these industrial boards, but that doesn't really matter, because replacing a whole main board would be a bit much for an upgrade.

The main board in my frame is based upon the Intel 915GM chip set and the fasted CPU compatible with it, is the Pentium M780. The CPU currently fitted is a Pentium M760 and the only difference between the two is that the M780 runs at 2.26GHz, while the M760 runs at 2.0GHz. This measly 13% extra CPU power will not make the look & feel any smoother.

The main board itself is fitted with two SO-DIMMs of 512MiB each, 533MHz, CL4. The chip set is said to be compatible with DDR3, though DDR3 SO-DIMMs are noticed differently due to electric incompatibility. So the only upgrade possible here is to increase the size, but not by much, because the 32-bit physical address only offers 4GiB of address space. With PCI usually taking 1GiB, there's only 3GiB of address space left for RAM. 2 GiB DDR2 SO-DIMMs do exist, but rare, hence expensive and unlikely to be compatible. Corsair 1GiB SO-DIMMs cost €12 per piece, so that's a no-brainer.

An Intel DC S4600 240GiB SSD costs around €180 and is enterprise-grade, hence reliable and power-fail robust. This will probably do the most for the look and feel.

Now let's see if we can upgrade this beautiful beast! It doesn't seem to like all the Windows XP updates...

[j_hallows]

Ok, just for completeness: Not all TLA7012 are fitted with the same main board. I don't know the manufacturer of these industrial boards, but that doesn't really matter, because replacing a whole main board would be a bit much for an upgrade.

TLA7012 Generation 1 Board is a Radisys ENDURA AB915GM. I don't know what the Generation 2 Core i5 motherboard is. The TLA7012 Generation 2 Chassis is also different.

Maximum memory on TLA7012 Generation 1 motherboard is 2GB.

[MindBender]

TLA7012 Generation 1 Board is a Radisys ENDURA AB915GM. I don't know what the Generation 2 Core i5 motherboard is. The TLA7012 Generation 2 Chassis is also different.
Maximum memory on TLA7012 Generation 1 motherboard is 2GB.

Now that's useful information! I have found the manual and attached it to this post. I hope I am allowed to do that. It says that the CPU socket is a 479-pin tool activated
ZIF PGA socket for ?FC-PGA processor packages, so replacing the CPU may be a bit more cumbersome than expected.

Maximum memory on TLA7012 Generation 1 motherboard is 2GB.

The manual says:
The AB915GM motherboard has two DIMM sockets to accept 64-bit, non-ECC, non-parity DDR2
SO-DIMM memory modules ranging from 128MB to 2GB. The sockets may be populated in
either order and each can accept either single or double-sided modules.
That leaves the option open to install 2x 2GiB modules, if the CPU supports PAE. ARK specifies the Pentium M 760 to have 32-bit PAE, but that's a bit ambiguous unless it doesn't include PCI address space. In that case 4GiB should be be possible, otherwise perhaps 3GiB may still be a possibility. Unfortunately, 2GiB DDR2 SO-DIMMs are too expensive for the experiment.

[j_hallows]

That leaves the option open to install 2x 2GiB modules, if the CPU supports PAE. ARK specifies the Pentium M 760 to have 32-bit PAE, but that's a bit ambiguous unless it doesn't include PCI address space. In that case 4GiB should be be possible, otherwise perhaps 3GiB may still be a possibility.

I don't think the Chipset allows more than 2GB.

[MindBender]

I don't think the Chipset allows more than 2GB.

Now you're making me curious. I've just ordered two 2GiB SO-DIMMs and we'll find out in a couple of days...

[MindBender]

I don't think the Chipset allows more than 2GB.

Update
You were right: I am not able to get it to work with >2GiB of RAM. On the bright side though, it accepts DDR2 800MHz (PC2-6400) perfectly fine. Even a single 2GiB SO-DIMM is not problem. But with two of them, I don't even get a BIOS screen. No BIOS error beeps either.
I had mixed results combining a 2GiB SO-DIMM with a 1GiB SO-DIMM. Some times I didn't get a BIOS screen, some times it reported to have 2GiB. This could still be due to the mixed timing between the two: The 1GiB SO-DIMM is a DDR2 533MHz (PC2-4200), but that clock rating is screamingly expensive in 2GiB versions. So I'll stick with the 2GiB I have now. I would have like to have 3GiB, but beggars can't be choosers.

Thanks for your input, guys!

[RomDump]

I don't think the Chipset allows more than 2GB.

Update
You were right: I am not able to get it to work with >2GiB of RAM. On the bright side though, it accepts DDR2 800MHz (PC2-6400) perfectly fine. Even a single 2GiB SO-DIMM is not problem. But with two of them, I don't even get a BIOS screen. No BIOS error beeps either.
I had mixed results combining a 2GiB SO-DIMM with a 1GiB SO-DIMM. Some times I didn't get a BIOS screen, some times it reported to have 2GiB. This could still be due to the mixed timing between the two: The 1GiB SO-DIMM is a DDR2 533MHz (PC2-4200), but that clock rating is screamingly expensive in 2GiB versions. So I'll stick with the 2GiB I have now. I would have like to have 3GiB, but beggars can't be choosers.

Thanks for your input, guys!

Went through the same thing with my TLA7012. Well you learnt something  now. 

[pquadrat]

Anyone tried to upgrade a Tek TLA7012 to Windows 7 and a newer Motherboard?

I did not succeed yet. I used a Gigabyte G41 and G43-Chipset Board with Core2Duo E8400 CPU, and installed Windows 7 64 bit. The driver for the Teklink Interface does not load correctly. Missing Resources.

With Windows 7 32bit the TLA application always complains about a missing visa32.dll, which is present in both system32 and the program directory.

Any hints?

[RomDump]

With Windows 7 32bit the TLA application always complains about a missing visa32.dll, which is present in both system32 and the program directory.

Any hints?

I assume you installed and have running TEKVISA and didn't just copy the visa32.dll over? You may want to uninstall and reinstall TekVisa.

I didn't upgrade the O/S on my TLA7012 so I am really no help.

[pquadrat]

Did anyone succeed in using Windows 7 on a TLA7012 ?

I tried it with the original Pentium M motherboard, all drivers load without any errors, but the TLA Application will not start, it tells onla "Updating Configuration".

The problem of my brevious post is a problem of some pCI hardware with certain boards.

[pquadrat]

Some success on "upgrading" my Tek TLA7012:

I upgraded to a Pentium M 770 and 2GB RAM, all experiments with other mainboards did not work with the TekLink interface. And a Sata SSD, of course. Runs quite well now.

Next step was to get Windows 7 working with the Tek Software and drivers, after several attempts I got the drivers working, no error messages.
I tried it again, installing in different steps between the different versions, sometimes it gives a working system, sometimes not ("Updating Configuration" message).
I can not tell You which way works, and which does not, but with some trying, it does work.

And the last step was to upgrade the display to a 1600x1200 resolution. The display from an old IBM ThinkPad A30p has this resolution, and exactly the same form factor, all mounting holes are a perfect fit. Just had to make a new lvds cable and play with the bios settings for the internal lvds connector.

Display type is IDTech IAUX14S.

[lukier]

And the last step was to upgrade the display to a 1600x1200 resolution. The display from an old IBM ThinkPad A30p has this resolution, and exactly the same form factor, all mounting holes are a perfect fit. Just had to make a new lvds cable and play with the bios settings for the internal lvds connector.

Display type is IDTech IAUX14S.

Thanks for the tip on the LCD, that's one of the upgrades that's still on my TODO list. Did you keep the original touchscreen layer?

I went through similar troubles with my TLA7012 (originally TLA6204).

I've spent considerable amount of time trying to get a bit more modern motherboard to run (my one originally has AIMB-256G2-00A1E).  I've got a lot of components, adapters and PCI/PCIe extensions from my experiments on modernising my LeCroy WaveRunner 6100A.

I've tried some industrial ITX board with Haswell i7, through various PCIe to PCI adapters, then I've tried some Asus motherboard (with the same Haswell CPU) that has PCI built-in (but also via PCIe to PCI bridge IC) - no success at all. Absolute mess and desperation can be seen on the photos.

So I gave up, went back to the original MoBo, upgraded the CPU to Core2 Duo E8335, added AFAIR extra 2GB RAM stick, so it runs with 3GB RAM, haven't tried 4GB but there is probably no point. It has SSD and runs Win7x64.

Not as nice as I would have wanted, but good enough.

[TiN]

Nohope.jpg sums it all. Often custom proprietary stuff like these Tek boxes run on non-standard PCI/memory mapping "hacks" already, making it work thru even more non-standard implementations like noname PCIe bridges is a path to despair.

I run my TLA with Core Extreme CPU and 4GB RAMs + SSD, found it nice enough to use for all my needs. Should find some time to try TLA7SA16 module in action, oh well..

[pquadrat]

Thanks for the tip on the LCD, that's one of the upgrades that's still on my TODO list. Did you keep the original touchscreen layer?

Yes, i kept it, but up to now I have only the windows 7 driver, which has no calibration tool. The XP driver used on the TLA7012 made all mouse functions dysfunctional.
How does Your touch screen works on Windows 7?

Do You think an Advantech AIMB-582QG2 board is worth a try?
 
 
 

[lukier]

Yes, i kept it, but up to now I have only the windows 7 driver, which has no calibration tool. The XP driver used on the TLA7012 made all mouse functions dysfunctional.
How does Your touch screen works on Windows 7?

It does. I don't remember if it worked out of the box or if I had to download the drivers from here:
https://www.elotouch.com/support/downloads#/

There is a control panel applet for calibration. It says "Elo Touchscreen Control Panel. Version 5.8.2"

Do You think an Advantech AIMB-582QG2 board is worth a try?

Cannot tell, mine just came with it and PCI works, so that's all I have.

[MindBender]

Often custom proprietary stuff like these Tek boxes run on non-standard PCI/memory mapping "hacks" already, making it work thru even more non-standard implementations like noname PCIe bridges is a path to despair.

Yes; High performance equipment like this often uses special settings in the PCIe bus switches to get out every last bit of bandwidth they can. I know this from personal experience, because I have done this for a customer, a manufacturer of similar high bandwidth equipment.
These settings could be put in the EEPROMs attached to the switches, or even set in the bridges at run-time. One could even argue that mainstream mainboard manufacturers don't put in a lot of effort to get the most our of these settings. Or, alternatively, go for very safe settings, compatibility wise.

I run my TLA with Core Extreme CPU and 4GB RAMs + SSD, found it nice enough to use for all my needs. Should find some time to try TLA7SA16 module in action, oh well..

On the standard board? Please do tell us more!

[d37duck]

Hi,

I have a first generation TLA7012 with no disk.  The BIOS talks when powered up there is nothing to boot.  I want to install a disk and OS.  I assume I'll need the chipset and device drivers for the Radisys AB915GM mother board.  Can someone please tell me were to get them.

Thanks

[chriva]

Pentium M are rather weak so I'd keep it on XP.
You can _NOT_ upgrade to an i5 since it has a different socket and architecture.

Given your current processor speed I'd say it has a Banias based Pentium M. ie 400 MHz FSB so it might not be compatible with the later Dothan cores. It all depends on bios and chipset version.

Windows 10 is much easier on the hardware than Windows 7 but I still don't think it has the grunt to properly run it.
Don't believe the Windows 7 fanboys

[nctnico]

Don't bother too much. The Tektronix software runs slow anyway and it doesn't use the processor fully.

[d37duck]

Hi Something Good Happened,

I loaded Windows XP Pro x32 2002 onto a Hitachi Hard Disk and installed all the drivers I could find for my TLA7012, which was all put one.
 
I was missing the driver for the PCI Coprocessor.   When this driver isn’t installed the CPU has jerky response, there are DOS Boxes flashing on the display every 10 seconds, nags about no TekLink connection, and the PC hangs on mouse button stimuli.  I assume the PCI Coprocessor is turned on without an interface to the OS to control it, so it runs wild generating interrupts to the CPU.
 
The Front Panel is an example.  When I power on the TLA7012 before the Front Panel driver is installed, the push buttons illuminate and stay on after the OS boots.  When I power up the TLA7012 after the Front Panel driver is installed, the push buttons illuminate but are turned of when the OS boots.

I couldn’t find the PCI Coprocessor driver so I logged onto the Tektronix Support Center.  They opened a support case, two hours later I got and email telling me “Just uploaded on the box account” with a link.  I followed the link and there was a 15 MB file, TLA7012_drivers.zip, to download.  I unpacked the file and found folders for: Audio, Chipset, Front Panel, GBE EEROM, Graphics, LAN, PCI-VXI Bridge, Semtech Touch Screen, and TekLink Bridge.  I think Tektronix has changed for the better.  In the past their response would be the part number for a new system disk drive, I could buy, with a lead time of a month or so.   I’m pleased to see Tektronix act more like HP in the old days.  They still have a way to go, an online part number database, with were used, to support their maintains manuals would be nice.

I used the Windows Hardware Manager to load a driver for the Coprocessor from the TekLink Bridge folder.  The Wizard accepted the folder and the Hardware Manager said all the devices where loaded.  I power cycled the instrument and everything still had a driver.  I had not run the TLA_V51SP1 upgrade so I decided to state over again with a fresh WinXP intallation.  On my second time around, I used the drivers from the zip file.  I loaded the:
•   Chipset folder;
•   Graphics folder, that didn’t install so I used the driver I found previously;
•   Audio folder;
•   LAN folder; that didn’t install so I used the driver I found previously;
•   Front Panel;
•   Semtech Touch Screen folder;
•   TekLink Bridge;
•   I don’t know what GBE EEROM is, so I didn’t try it.  Does anyone know about it?
•   The next step was to install upgrade TLA_V51SP1.  See the instructions in TLASWDOWN_51SP1.pdf

The LAN folder that didn’t install contains a driver for a PCI LAN Card, the driver I used is for motherboard applications using a 82573E PHY chip (PRO2KXP_v14_0.exe).  I don’t know why the Graphics folder didn’t install but I used a driver included in the Intel 915 driver set (win2k_xp142550.exe).  The graphics driver is needed to run the display at full resolution.  The Audio folder contains drivers for three different chips, use the Hardware Manager to select the one that works.  The correct choice for my Radisys motherboard was wdm.  I think the driver zip is covering the later motherboard or TLA7PC.  Tektronix wanted feedback so I raved about their service and gave them a FYI about the missing drivers.
 
Intel doesn’t supply drivers for their discontinued chip sets or PC Boards.  They stopped in early 2020.  The drivers I used came from: https://drivers.eu/ .  I discovered this website about a month ago, they picked up support for discontinued computer boards, CPUs, and chip sets.  They support Intel’s ATX boards used in various Tek instruments but not Radisys.   For the Radisys motherboard I searched for drivers by chip family.

After installing everything and rebooting, the CPU lost its jerkiness and the TLA applications came to life.  A TLA7E1 went through relay clicking spasms like any other digital scope at power up, but the waveform displayed is very noisy.  A TLA7AA4 wants upgraded firmware.  I think I got it. 

There’s a helpful post by John_ITIC of a technical paper: History of Windows Device Drivers. 

Thankyou Tektronix and ALL,

[calibrationfixture]

Hi,

A bit overdue, but could be usefull. Some time ago I also build my TLA7012 HDD up from scratch. Later I discovered there is a free TLA7012 Recovery Set (First Generation) on:

https://archive.org/details/tla-7012-recovery-media-063-3876-02

I made a Disk with that. Working perfect, no puzzling.

Calibrationfixture