Author Topic: Upgrading Mainboard in Lecroy DDA-3000 (aka WavePro 7300a?)  (Read 166843 times)

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Offline darkstar49

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Re: Upgrading Mainboard in Lecroy DDA-3000 (aka WavePro 7300a?)
« Reply #50 on: July 27, 2016, 01:23:41 pm »


I personnally did an upgrade of a WaveRunner 6050 (non A), with a Kontron board that has an LVDS connector for the display, I bought an LVDS cable, replaced the display with one with a LED backlight, and the right connector, and that works great...  (excepted that I had to solder an inverter in between for the backlight intensity, which was reversed by default... some Kontron boards have BIOS settings to change that, mine didn't...)

I also tried several mainboards (up to Q77 chipset), but I ran into problems with the USB controller... the frontpanel is connected via USB, but ALL Intel chipset > 4 do NOT recognize the frontpanel USB chips.
The Q45 chipset was the most recent one that worked without problems...

Regarding the compatibility of the drivers with multi-CPUs... difficult to say... I can only say I had some (rare) 'freezes' with my Quad-Core CPU (Q9100), but nothing that would made me go back to a less powerful one...  compared to the previous Pentium 4, it's a rocket !! (it boots on an Intel Sata SSD as well).

I also had some graphics issues, in particular with the 3D display mode... but these went away with the upgrade to Windows 7...

 

Offline Wuerstchenhund

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Re: Upgrading Mainboard in Lecroy DDA-3000 (aka WavePro 7300a?)
« Reply #51 on: July 27, 2016, 02:33:59 pm »
I personnally did an upgrade of a WaveRunner 6050 (non A), with a Kontron board that has an LVDS connector for the display, I bought an LVDS cable, replaced the display with one with a LED backlight, and the right connector, and that works great...  (excepted that I had to solder an inverter in between for the backlight intensity, which was reversed by default... some Kontron boards have BIOS settings to change that, mine didn't...)

Hmm, I guess I should have a look into Kontron boards. I'm still contemplating if I should upgrade the board in my WavePro 7300A or not. If there was a simple plug and play alternative that doesn't involve modifying any of the WavePro's original components (so it could be put back into original condition if required) then this would make an upgrade much more attractive.

Quote
I also tried several mainboards (up to Q77 chipset), but I ran into problems with the USB controller... the frontpanel is connected via USB, but ALL Intel chipset > 4 do NOT recognize the frontpanel USB chips.
The Q45 chipset was the most recent one that worked without problems...

I have head that the USB controller in the front panel can be difficult (if I remember right this was because the controller only speaks USB 1.0 which some of the newer controllers have difficulties with, but that's from memory).

Thanksfully (or sadly, depending how you see it) the front panel of the WavePro is connected via I2C, so it shouldn't be dependent on the mobo chipset.

Quote
Regarding the compatibility of the drivers with multi-CPUs... difficult to say... I can only say I had some (rare) 'freezes' with my Quad-Core CPU (Q9100), but nothing that would made me go back to a less powerful one...  compared to the previous Pentium 4, it's a rocket !!

The multiprocessor issue only exists on the WavePro 7k(A) (and the derived DDA and SDA), and not on any other LeCroy scope including the WR6k. And the issue is actually "only" with the driver for the front panel.

Quote
(it boots on an Intel Sata SSD as well).

Mine also has an intel SSD (530 Series), for which intel has provided a nice Trim utility that works on Windows XP.

The difference between the slow 80GB EIDE drive the scope came with and the SSD (connected to the mobo's SATA150 port) is like day and night.

Quote
I also had some graphics issues, in particular with the 3D display mode... but these went away with the upgrade to Windows 7...

Wait, are you saying you managed to upgrade the OS on your WR6k from Windows 2000 or XP to Windows 7? If so, how?

I tried a few times to upgrade an XP based LeCroy scope to (32bit) Vista or Windows 7 but I always failed when the X-Stream software tried to initialize the scope and came up with "wrong platform" or a similar error message.

I'd love to upgrade my WavePro to say Vista (for which I have a few licenses).
 

Offline darkstar49

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Re: Upgrading Mainboard in Lecroy DDA-3000 (aka WavePro 7300a?)
« Reply #52 on: July 27, 2016, 03:42:35 pm »


To be totally honest, I didn't boot the WR6K since quite a while...   I have an MSO3054 from Tek, which I love as well (although going to sell it...), and that takes much less space on my desk...

I'll try to boot the beast and let you know...   I'm not even sure in what exact state (i.e. OS version) I left it...  I know I had W7, but indeed, I think I had to go through Vista to do that... and I even had Windows 8.0 running at a given moment...

Btw, I also replaced ALL internal fans with those from Noctua... it's not as quiet as the Tek, but still a LLLOOOOOOOOT  quiter that originally...

Regards
 

Offline dxlTopic starter

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Re: Upgrading Mainboard in Lecroy DDA-3000 (aka WavePro 7300a?)
« Reply #53 on: August 08, 2016, 12:13:16 pm »
Just to add an update on my memory depth problem (Memory works only up to 1MS/s, larger sizes show missing data in the traces): After changing the two SRAMs on the PCI cards i didn't encounter the Problem again during the last weeks. But i guess if the problem is still there, it will show up right after posting this ;)
 

Offline albertr

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Re: Upgrading Mainboard in Lecroy DDA-3000 (aka WavePro 7300a?)
« Reply #54 on: February 14, 2017, 06:08:00 am »
"Upgraded" WP7K1 to 1024x768 XGA LCD panel with LED backlight. Touchscreen is still a 4 wire resistive type, so the same TS serial driver works and TS can be turned on/off or calibrated from LeCroy X-Stream application. Backlight intensity is controlled from X-Stream application as well the same way as it was with the original fluorescent bulb backlight. Front panel seems to work fine with Sven's driver.

-albertr
« Last Edit: February 14, 2017, 11:51:49 am by albertr »
 

Offline Converter

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Re: Upgrading Mainboard in Lecroy DDA-3000 (aka WavePro 7300a?)
« Reply #55 on: February 17, 2017, 10:29:06 pm »
I did it last year. Install NL10276BC20-04 matrix instead of the original (NL8060BC26-17) is a very simple task. To do this lvds board 1024x768 30-pin scaler can be bought in China, but I prefer to to take out from the old monitor 15 ", which is sold for only $ 3-5.
So in the photo below you can see an example a more radical modernization. This mode 2048x1536 LCD matrix LTN097QL01 iPad Retina 9.7 ", which can also easily be installed inside oscilloscope instead of the original 10.7" NEC 800x600.
It is connected via DP (DisplayPort) interface and a discrete graphics card Radeon HD 6450.

I also last summer replaced the original motherboard WP 7300A to LGA1150, and processor Intel® Core ™ i3-4350, 3.6 MHz x 2 (4 HT). I spent a number of tests: it works faster than ever, and in some situations (in case of large number of computations) the waveform update faster to 4 times.

https://youtu.be/a_AFU8b6rm8






« Last Edit: July 21, 2017, 08:54:06 pm by Converter »
 
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Offline dxlTopic starter

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Re: Upgrading Mainboard in Lecroy DDA-3000 (aka WavePro 7300a?)
« Reply #56 on: February 22, 2017, 09:59:36 am »
Sounds interesting - where did you take the connector for the ipad display from? Is that a standard part, or did you take it from an ipad? (Also wondering whether you can read the font at that resolution?)
« Last Edit: February 22, 2017, 10:04:24 am by dxl »
 

Offline Converter

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Re: Upgrading Mainboard in Lecroy DDA-3000 (aka WavePro 7300a?)
« Reply #57 on: February 23, 2017, 03:44:29 am »
Sounds interesting - where did you take the connector for the ipad display from? Is that a standard part, or did you take it from an ipad?
I use the DP-Adapter. Such PCBs are sold in China for $ 50-60, but I found the best quality in Japan for $ 31: http://abusemark.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=47

It looks like it has only 2 connectors for the DP and the voltage converter for LED-backlight matrix from 5 V USB.
However, in the USB enabled signal pair, so that brightness possibly controlled by the driver from the system.


Display Tablet 9.7 "can be successfully installed in the oscilloscope, assembled with its front frame, which will fill the missing space at the edges up to 10.4"




As a touchscreen, you can also keep the original glass capacitive from the  tablet, if you buy a universal capacitive touchscreen USB adapter, which can be found on the Internet.

Quote
(Also wondering whether you can read the font at that resolution?)
Yes you are right. The font looks too small. This makes it inconvenient to read. But if you wish, at any time you have the opportunity to switch to a lower resolution Windows multiple of two (1024x768). In this case, you do not suffer from interpolation and get all the same clear boundaries.
At the same time, if you need to put on the screen the maximum of information, for example to distribute the screen a large number of graphs, the maximum screen resolution and minimizing fonts give you benefits. "Retina" also has unmatched contrast, black levels and viewing angles.
« Last Edit: February 23, 2017, 03:10:22 pm by Converter »
 

Offline nctnico

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Re: Upgrading Mainboard in Lecroy DDA-3000 (aka WavePro 7300a?)
« Reply #58 on: February 23, 2017, 03:43:52 pm »
Just to be clear: the oscilloscope software supports other resolutions than 1024x768 for displaying waveforms?
There are small lies, big lies and then there is what is on the screen of your oscilloscope.
 

Offline Converter

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Re: Upgrading Mainboard in Lecroy DDA-3000 (aka WavePro 7300a?)
« Reply #59 on: February 23, 2017, 04:07:13 pm »
Just to be clear: the oscilloscope software supports other resolutions than 1024x768 for displaying waveforms?
There are no restrictions. It works the same way as if you connect an external a high resolution monitor to oscilloscope LeCroy in the socket on the back of the device.  And that envisaged a specification. When you select the new resolution in Windows, X-Stream app automatically uses this permission settings. In video provided above you can see how the 2048x1536, and there is no unwanted interpolation.
The amount of information retrieved 8-bit ADC of course limited to the construction of oscillograms high resolution. But maybe one day you have to watch a lot of oscillograms and many digits on the same screen. Then the insufficient resolution of the matrix will spoil the signal due to the significant quantization.
« Last Edit: February 23, 2017, 04:18:40 pm by Converter »
 

Offline albertr

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Re: Upgrading Mainboard in Lecroy DDA-3000 (aka WavePro 7300a?)
« Reply #60 on: February 23, 2017, 05:03:45 pm »
...
I also last summer replaced the original motherboard WP 7300A to LGA1150, and processor Intel® Core ™ i3-4350, 3.6 MHz x 2 (4 HT). I spent a number of tests: it works faster than ever, and in some situations (in case of large number of computations) the waveform update faster to 4 times.
...

I think 2 cores running @ 3.6GHz like i3-4350 you are using could be a better choice than 4 cores @ 3.4GHz I have in mine. I went with i7-2600, but I can see that XStream doesn't really do much parallel processing in persistent visualization mode (and especially in 3D mode which is very CPU intensive). I'm quite new to WavePro and XStream, but if I knew that before, I probably would go with i3 CPU. Might now take a look at overclocking.

What kind of CPU load do you see when you use 3D mode like the one you demo in your youtube video? On my WP7K1 with Intel i7-2600 I'm able to bring one of the cores to 100% and it slows down the visuals. I'm curious if it's really CPU-bound or the graphic chip is a culprit?  I'm still using Intel HD graphic chip integrated on the CPU...

-albertr


« Last Edit: February 23, 2017, 05:51:28 pm by albertr »
 

Offline dxlTopic starter

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Re: Upgrading Mainboard in Lecroy DDA-3000 (aka WavePro 7300a?)
« Reply #61 on: February 23, 2017, 05:22:05 pm »
I also had an external DVI display connected to my LeCroy and the software was working fine with 1600x1200 resolution.
 

Offline albertr

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Re: Upgrading Mainboard in Lecroy DDA-3000 (aka WavePro 7300a?)
« Reply #62 on: February 23, 2017, 05:42:19 pm »
And multimonitor setup (if supported by the graphic driver) works fine with XStream. I have hi-res external monitor connected via DVI port sometimes too, and I have two monitors set up side by side and can start XStream on either of them. Works beautifully.

-albertr
 

Offline Converter

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Re: Upgrading Mainboard in Lecroy DDA-3000 (aka WavePro 7300a?)
« Reply #63 on: February 23, 2017, 06:14:49 pm »
...
I also last summer replaced the original motherboard WP 7300A to LGA1150, and processor Intel® Core ™ i3-4350, 3.6 MHz x 2 (4 HT). I spent a number of tests: it works faster than ever, and in some situations (in case of large number of computations) the waveform update faster to 4 times.
...

I think 2 cores running @ 3.6GHz like i3-4350 you are using could be a better choice than 4 cores @ 3.4GHz I have in mine. I went with i7-2600, but I can see that XStream doesn't really do much parallel processing in persistent visualization mode (and especially in 3D mode which is very CPU intensive). I'm quite new to WavePro and XStream, but if I knew that before, I probably would go with i3 CPU. Might have to take a look at overclocking too.

-albertr
Yeah, right. Enough to have a 1-2 core with a maximum operating frequency and a modern, efficient pipelines.
The most optimal, probably should be a platform:

Motherboard LGA1156, i5-680 processor (3.6 GHz);
LGA1155, processor i3-3250 (3,5 GHz);
LGA1150, processor i3-4370 (3,8 GHz)

It is important that in the micro ATX motherboard remained 1-2 PCI slot.
« Last Edit: February 24, 2017, 03:05:08 am by Converter »
 

Offline lukier

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Re: Upgrading Mainboard in Lecroy DDA-3000 (aka WavePro 7300a?)
« Reply #64 on: February 23, 2017, 06:31:11 pm »
It is important that in the micro ATX motherboard remained 1-2 PCI slot.

What about PCIe to PCI adapters? Will it work? (let's ignore possible mechanical problems) This could enable much more modern HW.
 

Offline Converter

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Re: Upgrading Mainboard in Lecroy DDA-3000 (aka WavePro 7300a?)
« Reply #65 on: February 23, 2017, 07:05:00 pm »
These oscilloscopes are using original technology LeCroy XStream is protected by several patents.
The distinguishing feature of this architecture is that signal processing is implemented software-hardware method, as opposed to a purely hardware used Tektronix et al. But by creating special microcode being loaded into the cache of the first processor level and process information on the clock frequency of the processor (without resorting to RAM) achieved an amazing performance of the system, competing with purely hardware implementation, and sometimes outstripping the last (example in comparison with the TDS7104).
When carried out in the same manner and advanced measurement and mathematical functions, it becomes clear why the "mathematics" has no equal LeCroy.
But this means that the performance of the processor pipelines plays a crucial role, in contrast to other architectures, where the processor is only used for GUI.

Of course, all the advantages of this architecture is particularly pronounced in the case of measurement, statistics, FFT and other functions and operating with a large memory depth of the captured signal. However, in the graph you can see that even the most trivial task to display a small amount of signal, was accelerated (for example, from 4.41 ms to 3.16 ms, in mode 1 ns / div). It is interpolated by the sine.

Interpolation sin x/x:




Several smaller increment in case of linear interpolation (I quote below a table with the results of comparative tests with linear interpolation).

Linear interpolation:




Especially significant speed boost in the capture of signals with deep load fastest memory (10 MB) and computational operations (in the table below: measurement period, the measurement period + track).

MODES with measurements:


All tests was used the signal from the output of the calibration of the oscilloscope: meander, 1 B, 1 MHz.
Compared parameters - waveform update rate, which was controlled by the frequency of restarting the oscilloscope trigger.
« Last Edit: February 24, 2017, 01:57:28 am by Converter »
 

Offline Converter

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Re: Upgrading Mainboard in Lecroy DDA-3000 (aka WavePro 7300a?)
« Reply #66 on: February 23, 2017, 07:15:21 pm »
It is important that in the micro ATX motherboard remained 1-2 PCI slot.

What about PCIe to PCI adapters? Will it work? (let's ignore possible mechanical problems) This could enable much more modern HW.
It is necessary to try. I think that when correct installation of PCI-bridge drivers, problems do not should arise with XStream.
Just do not use these adapters, which as an intermediate line used USB-interface.
« Last Edit: February 23, 2017, 08:47:47 pm by Converter »
 

Offline dxlTopic starter

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Re: Upgrading Mainboard in Lecroy DDA-3000 (aka WavePro 7300a?)
« Reply #67 on: February 23, 2017, 09:24:17 pm »
YES! Got drivers running on Windows7! It requires a few changes to the inf files, i'll bundle something for the people interested here later.
 

Offline albertr

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Re: Upgrading Mainboard in Lecroy DDA-3000 (aka WavePro 7300a?)
« Reply #68 on: February 23, 2017, 09:33:13 pm »
Nice! Looking forward to see your changes! I assume your FP driver does work as well?

-albertr
« Last Edit: February 23, 2017, 09:36:39 pm by albertr »
 

Offline dxlTopic starter

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Re: Upgrading Mainboard in Lecroy DDA-3000 (aka WavePro 7300a?)
« Reply #69 on: February 23, 2017, 09:41:31 pm »
Testing my Frontpanel driver at the Moment. Just noticed that in the screenshot it says 'SDA3010' which seems wrong. Let's see whether everything is working as it should...
 

Offline dxlTopic starter

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Re: Upgrading Mainboard in Lecroy DDA-3000 (aka WavePro 7300a?)
« Reply #70 on: February 23, 2017, 09:46:59 pm »
Have to resize partitions first - 20G is just not enough for Windows 7...
 

Offline Converter

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Re: Upgrading Mainboard in Lecroy DDA-3000 (aka WavePro 7300a?)
« Reply #71 on: February 23, 2017, 09:54:10 pm »
As I understand you want Windows 7 to force to work in your device? It was great because I had no success so far.
 

Offline dxlTopic starter

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Re: Upgrading Mainboard in Lecroy DDA-3000 (aka WavePro 7300a?)
« Reply #72 on: February 23, 2017, 10:52:27 pm »
One interesting note i learned about calibration data:

I had 20G drive C:, and 20G userdata (which contains the calibration data). The userdata partition was contained in a logical partition. Just moving the partition content to a primary partition with dd on linux made the software complain that the calibration data was moved.
 

Offline Converter

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Re: Upgrading Mainboard in Lecroy DDA-3000 (aka WavePro 7300a?)
« Reply #73 on: February 23, 2017, 11:47:09 pm »
Yes, it is a known fact. Just under any manipulation of system disk is definitely worth preserving actual structure and the path to the folder in the original logical drive.
I am the first day, has retained disk images, since I do not know how it is possible to re-calibrate at home.
 

Offline albertr

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Re: Upgrading Mainboard in Lecroy DDA-3000 (aka WavePro 7300a?)
« Reply #74 on: February 24, 2017, 01:13:03 am »
...made the software complain that the calibration data was moved.

Sven, are you getting the same message about re-calibrating the scope as on the attached screenshot? Let me know if you can figure it out... I'm still struggling with mine.

As far as FP driver goes,  I've noticed that XStream complains about the missing driver version. It might be pure cosmetic and probably doesn't affect its functionality, but maybe you can consider adding VERSIONINFO resource to the driver?

Code: [Select]
bash-3.2$ strings FrontPanel.mauiLog  | sort | uniq
CFrontPanelServer::Front Panel Version Number invalid: 0x0
Failed to reset the front panel controler
FrontPanel
FrontPanel CMFP414PCIAladdinDrv
MFP Reset Failed
MFP version number failed
MLOG
bash-3.2$

Whatever you decide, keep up your great work, it's much appreciated!

-albertr
« Last Edit: February 24, 2017, 01:15:26 am by albertr »
 


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