Agilent 54825a Service Manual
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I have been hunting for a 1GHz+ scope for over half a year. I prefered one which has a high enough samplerate to do this in a single shot. Ofcourse it is 'easy' to spend several $k on a Lecroy Wavepro 7000 series or something similar but I didn't want to spend that much and avoid too much overlap with the oscilloscopes I already have. The older Lecroy LC584 is also interesting and I nearly got one but the Ebay seller bailed out on me (I did got a refund though). I also looked at the Tektronix TDS694C and TDS784 but the problem with these scopes is that they are older than the Agilent 54835A, have an obsolete NVRAM (SRAM + battery) inside and need special calibration software. The 54835A OTOH can calibrate itself using the auxilary output so it doesn't depend on calibrations values or options stored in a NVRAM. My main application for the 54835A is looking at high frequency signals (digital and analog).
The 54835A has a maximum depth of 65kpts on 2 channels and 32kpts on 4 channels and no peak-detect. I guess that if you don't want to spend much then deep memory and peak-detect are out of the window. OTOH the 54835A has a lot of tools for signal analysis like FFT, color grading and stacked/chained math functions. After some haggling and waiting I got this one from an Ebay seller called express_test: First I would like to point to this nice page with a different repair job on a similar scope: It has many details on the circuits. The most appearant problem is that it doesn't boot but otherwise it is a complete mistery. The upside is that the hard drive is detected which means it spins up and likely still has the software on it.
I opened it first to check whether all the wiring is connected and there are no potential safety issues. Some pictures of the inside.
First the part where the PC lives. Inside there is a VA503-A Super Socket 7 motherboard from FIC with an AMD K6-2 400MHz processor and 64MB of SDRAM memory. The acquisition board is at the underside.
This is also where most of the airflow is directed. Time for firing it up for the first time. With a PS/s keyboard connected I got passed the BIOS error message and after a short while the firmware started. The scope runs on Windows 98 (first edition). After a quick check it turned out (only) channel 2 is not working. All in all the noise isn't as bad as I had expected seeing the two 120mm fans. The high pitched whining noise from the hard drive is way more irritating.
Time to take try and fix it Changing the battery (which was empty) helped to get rid of the BIOS error and made the scope boot without needing to press a key. Note the bodge capacitor!
The first thing I wanted to try is to swap the attenuators. From the service manual I learned that the probe connector panel had to come off before the BNCs of the attenuators can be unbolted.
Unfortunately this means peeling the sticker off before the screws which hold the panel can be reached. That didn't work out very well: I think it will still look reasonable when put back together again. Some further disassembly: A spark plug socket for a socket wrench fits nicely on the BNC's nuts BTW. After swapping the attenuators it turned out the problem still persisted.
In the next step I swapped the ADC hybrids between channel 1 and 2: The ADC hybrids are connected to the board using some sort of socket with pogo-pins (spring loaded pins) which make contact between the ADC hybrid and the board. Ofcourse I cleaned everything with alcohol. Still no luck though. The problem moved with the ADC hybrid. In a final attempt to rule out any other problem I cross connected the attenuator outputs using SMA cables. Still no go so the only conclusion is that the ADC hybrid which is now on channel 1 is broken. I managed to source a module for (what I think) is a reasonable price but I have not received it yet.
After this I ran a full diagnostic which also pointed to some errors in the trigger circuit. Maybe it has been damaged because a piece of shielding metal wasn't fixed to the frame. Here is a picture which shows the shied re-attached to the frame using some M3 screws: When browsing on the hard drive I found an interesting help file: HP4XS.HLP.
This seems to contain a partial guide to do component level diagnostics/repairs. Hopefully it is helpful if it turns out the trigger circuit is really defective. Cleaning With nothing else to do let's give the outside a thourough cleaning to get rid of the grease marks and sticker residu. Much better if I may so so: Hard drive image I have not been able to find any older versions of the software for this oscilloscope so I made a backup using Ghost. For this I needed to connect an extra hard drive. The problem is that there are no power extension leads to do this so I made one out of the wires from an old AT power supply.
The VA503-A motherboard has both AT and ATX style power connectors and the AT one isn't used but suitable to drain some power from. After this creating an image was easy.
Rubber fan mountings The rubber fan mountings where completely perished and I have a bag of leftover cable glands. I like to think this made an improvement. Time for some uphacking! I already knew from the service manual that the hardware for the 54835A, 54845A (1. Download Video Gaby Tinggal Kenangan. 5GHz 8Gs/s) and 54846A (2.25GHz / 8Gs/s) is exactly the same so there had to be some option strappings to set the model.
Forum member Jwalling pointed me towards some resistors on the acquisition board which set the type of oscilloscope. The bad thing is that these resistors are on the solder side of the acquisition board so I had to take the entire board out. The board is covered with a rubber-ish RF shielding slab.
After removing the RF shielding: When glancing over the board something odd caught my eye and I had a WTF! Moment: This chip isn't attached to the board except with one leg! Some flux and solder fixed that but oddly enough it didn't seem to have any effect on the errors the self test showed. Back to the uphacking part. I located several resistors and decided to attach some switches after a few futile attempts to change the resistors using SMT tweezers. The scope software can be stopped using ctrl-alt-del which opens up the task manager on Win98 and restarted from the menu so testing all the combinations could be done quickly. Code: R3 R2 R1 R0 - - X X 54835A X X - - 54845A X = placed, - = open I have not found the 54846A mode but I have not included R4 in my test because I didn't spot it when looking for potential candidates.
For now I'm fine with the 54845A mode. There where also two other things on my wishlist: more memory and a faster processor. Much to my surprise FIC still has an FTP server with documentation and BIOS files. How cool is that? From the documentation I learned the maximum memory is 768MB divided over 3 modules of 256MB each.
It also should support the AMD K6-3 450MHz processor which (ofcourse) is faster and according to legend among the fastest socket 7 processors ever made. So I went on Ebay and spend $18 +shipping on 3 256MB memory modules and $15 on an AMD K6-3 450MHz.
The memory was advertised as new but I got 3 different modules and anti-static bags so I'm quite sure these are pulls. But hey, they where only $6 each. The biggest SDRAM module I had in my pile is 64MB so I guess back then 256MB ones would have been insanely expensive. The AMD K6-3 450MHz however did look brand new: Installing the memory was straightforward.
The processor proved more difficult. First of all I needed to dig up a Pentium-I cooler from my scrap heap because the original heatsink is glued onto the processor. Secondly with the new processor installed and setting the right core voltage & multiplier it wouldn't boot. After some Google-fu I found a forum message from the beginning of this millenium saying FIC has a beta BIOS version which supports the K6-3 450MHz. I found this in FIC's FTP server with version number JN4116. However the current BIOS version on the motherboard said JN4204 which I couldn't find in FIC's archive so this could be a special Agilent version.
I also would expect version 4204 to be newer than 4116. I decided to give it a try and save the old version twice (and check!) before attempting to flash the BIOS with version 4116. End result: BIOS version 4116 works with the AMD K6-3 450MHz and so does the oscilloscope software! The performance increase (waveforms/s) is about 15%. Running Windows XP The PC part is powerful enough to run XP.
There are three advantages of XP: it supports USB sticks, it runs the processor cooler and it can run the latest version of the software I found. Part of the process is also to install an SSD consisting of an mSata module in an mSata to 44pin IDE converter: I also needed a CD-ROM drive so I threw that into the mix as well: While doing this I ran into a problem. The XP installer would get either into a blue screen or it would not recognise the mSata drive. The first problem was caused by a slightly faulty CD-ROM drive the latter because the PCB which converts the 40 pin IDE into 44 pin IDE+power has been designed without any idea about signal integrity: Using a UDMA IDE cable+seperate 40 to 44pin convert allowed XP to install so on to the software. Installing the software took a while and after installing it, it complained about needing a license. So I also installed the licensing server. After this the software starts but crashes because it can't find a DLL.
Also the driver for the acquisition board is missing. I guess a seperate software package is needed which has the driver and a low level interface layer. I have not been able to locate either of those (except from an Ebay seller which asks nearly $500 for it). According to a post from Wuerstchenhund the new software is not a big improvement over the old software so I decided to go for plan B and use Win98 instead.
So I saved an image from the XP install and copied the image from the original software onto the SSD. Windows 98 and the original software seem to work just fine with the converter PCB in the middle so this is the final setup: BTW: this picture shows another problem I didn't spot until I made this picture! USB sticks & Win98 I still wanted to be able to use USB sticks to save screendumps and data to. Sure I could use the network for that but USB is easier. After some Googling I found this page which has a software package to install USB stick support on Win98.
After installing I had to re-install the driver for the USB sticks I had inserted earlier but after that it worked just fine. Leaky capacitors! This picture says it all: This meant I had to dissasemble the PC part and thus take all the boards and the motherboard out: I had some new low ESR capacitors lying around and for good measure I added a 4.7uf 100V ceramic. After putting everything together the scope still worked so I guess the capacitor replacement went OK.
Time for some play Let's try a 200MHz AM modulated signal first: Add some color grading in the mix: Let's try FFT and stacked math functions on a 200MHz FM modulated signal (+/-10MHz FM swing) The yellow line is the base FFT trace. The green is the max hold and blue is the averaged FFT trace. I have not tried it but it should be possible to have more than one FFT trace.
I checked the risetime from a square wave. When the samplerate is 4Gs/s the (calculated) bandwidth is 1.1GHz. At 8Gs/s the bandwidth is 1.5GHz. What is left is to wait for the ADC hybrid to turn up and see which errors remain after I have fitted it. To be continued.
Thanks for that write-up! Weird that that loose logic IC did not give any self-test errors. Maybe it was just interfacing with the dead ADC module, and hence the failure was being hidden? I am surprised that upgrading the CPU resulted in an increase in waveform/s.
I would have expected that to be handled completely in hardware that writes directly to the screen (DMA). So there is no difference in the calibration procedure for the various models? I could imagine the adjustments for front-end flatness etc might be different. Nice upgrade, anyway. Now fingers crossed that replacing the hybrid will indeed fix all the errors. It seems likely, based on the tests that you have performed, but you never know until you try it.
It could always be something obscure where one of the surrounding components is marginal, barely working with some hybrids and barely failing with others. Update: I managed to update the software to version 4.3 thanks to Tony_G's archive. I see FFT phase has been added to the math functions as well as other minor improvements. Upgrading from a USB stick instead of the LS120 drive needed some hacking using a hex editor on the oscilloscope program. The upgrade process always loads the upgrade from drive a: and you can't set it look on a different drive.
With help of the hex editor I changed all path (not text) references to a: into e: where the USB stick sits. After that it would load the software from the USB stick and do the upgrade process. I'll have to do the same to go from 4.3 to 4.5. According to the documentation 4.5 is an incomplete package and meant to be installed on top of 4.3. Since my scope ran version 3.72 it seemed wise to install 4.3 first and then 4.5. Nctnico: is 54835A the same architecture as 54381D ()?
I mean does it use the ancient C&T graphic card? If yes then there should be still some, albeit limited, room for improvement (in the PC department), instead of relying on the Socket7 motherboard that I guess is not really good anymore (performance, bad caps). LeCroy's are better in that respect, as they only use a single PCI card to communicate with the oscilloscope board so one can upgrade as far as Windows 7 32 bit can get (even i7 Haswell with PCIe to PCI adapter). Other connectivity is pretty standard, LVDS for the LCD (I've upgraded mine to XGA), standard signals for the CCFL inverter and, on WaveRunner 6K, the front panel is just a USB HID device (a bit problematic on newest hardware, doesn't like Intel root hubs, so one must use a separate USB controller). Maybe, because of different PC integration architecture the CPU processing power is not as important as in LeCroy's case. Still, more modern CPU and motherboard with SATA and USB would be nice I guess. I have no idea how the Agilent software would react to upgraded PC internals though.
Before anyone starts talking WinXP on the 54810A series. The 54830/31/32A/D used 1GHz or 1.2 GHZ Pentium III processors on a newer platform without ISA slots. They did use the same C&T graphics driver chip, though.
However, the ACQ controller is newer (In fact the older ACQ controller from the 54810A series is present but only used for power on functions, front panel control, and the scope's video frame buffer) I think upgrading to XP would be a problem as the driver for the ACQ controller would not want to talk to the old ACQ board. EDIT: And I don't think the pin-out for the ribbon cable is the same anyway. EDIT2: which wouldn't matter anyway.
You'd have to find an XP driver for the OLD controller. The picture shows the newer ACQ controller in red, the old one in blue If one could find a newer motherboard (just to upgrade the hardware for performance) with an ISA slot (For GPIB functionality) it just might work. The 54835A uses a C&T CT5550 graphics card. I'm not a fan (understatement) of AMD and VIA but I have to assume HP/ Agilent did some reliability tests before deciding to use this particular motherboard for a high end oscilloscope. I actually found a service note from Agilent from 2005 which describes a recall to replace the existing motherboard with the VA503-A and put a VIN33 (latest hardware version) sticker on the back of the scope.
I think upgrading the motherboard can be done but the acquisition and videocard will need a PCI slot. And there is also the limitation of the AT style keyboard connector in the casing and how much power can the power supply deliver? All in all there won't be many options to make the PC part much faster.
@stj: I'll keep an eye open for USB problems. So far USB sticks are working OK and if not then I'm quite sure I have a USB-PCI card somewhere in an old PC. There should be plenty of more modern options, there are Core2Quad motherboards featuring 2 PCI slots. You only have to be brave enough to take a metal nibbler and cut the ATX IO shield opening (I have no idea why Agilent decided to do their own cutouts, seems silly) Often newer processors have better performance/power consumption ratio so I wouldn't worry about the PSU that much (and you've gained some watts by going the SSD route, CD drive can be disconnected as well).
However, maybe Agilent software depends heavily on a particular motherboard and/or BIOS as is the case in some older Tek scopes (which are even worse as they use very custom form factor motherboard). No need to peel the front label off to remove that probe interface board. From inside the scope: between bnc of channel2 and channel3 you will see 2 metal clips. Simply press those and the netire pcb including the metal stiffner pops off. You don't need to muck with the screw nor destroy the front panel. As for the battery ont he interface board: that holds the attenuator click count and the self diagnostic / calibration data.
If that bettery goes empty simply rerun the diagnostic. You can launch scope.exe using the service command ' scope.exe /service' that gives extra options in the self test menu where you can set attenuator click and othe roptions. Don't expect too much, especially on a Windows 98 unit. You get a bit more than with an older InfiniiVision scope, but it shows that these Infiniiums were HP's first attempts at doing a Windows scope. The 54835A was designed as a general purpose bench scope, not as an analysis scope, where its capabilities are more limited.
The architecture is really super-slow, but the old Win9x models with Socket7 mobo even managed to strangulate this slow architecture through its even slower PC part (slow and buggy VIA chipset). Also, not all Win9x variants can be upgraded to XP, which is recommended so you can use the later software which contains more functions and lots of bug fixes.
Also, reliability wasn't exactly great on these Infiniiums. We had lots of them and lots of problems with dead ADC hybrids, acquisition board issues, trigger issues, issues with the interface card and dying PSUs. Agilent only really got a handle of that with the successor Infiniium DSO8000/DSO80000. As other said upgrading isn't easy because of the different interface cards but frankly going beyond the K6-3 450MHz won't offer you much performance improvement as when you go to a P2 or faster the architecture becomes the limiting factor (and the Windows part is only used as display on these scopes). I'd still consider getting a P2 board with ISA slot to get rid of the buggy VIA chipset, though. Depending on what you want to do, a DSO8104A (which with some patience can be found.
Agilent HP 54825A / 54825N Oscilloscope Recovery CD ================================================== Agilent Infiniium 548xx Oscilloscope Recovery CD Operating System + Software Version 4.3 For models with the FIC motherboard (i.e. VIN 030-033) Author: Patrick F. Wilbur ================================================== IMPORTANT: LINKING TO THIS PAGE Thank you for your interest in this page! Please feel free to share this resource with your friends; HOWEVER, please do not link directly to the downloads, listed below! Instead, please use the following permalink to this page for all linking/sharing: Floppy Recovery is an Issue The Agilent HP 54825A / 54825N Digital Oscilloscope is an incredibly powerful test and research tool. Although this oscilloscope is now no longer officially supported, Agilent’s technical support staff are extremely helpful in resolving problems, in case you encounter problems and have had one of these scopes for a while or have recently bought a used one from a great remanufacturer. Unfortunately, if you encounter a failing, failed, or corrupted hard drive and need to re-install its operating system and software, you might be out of luck.
Agilent’s technical support team does have some LS-120 recovery floppy media that they can loan, but if it is already loaned to someone else you need to wait your turn. Furthermore, although Agilent has always had LS-120 floppy disk images available, it is highly unlikely that you will easily find an LS-120 drive or LS-120 120 megabyte floppy disks to actually place the recovery disk images on.
Alternative: CD-ROM Recovery (Downloadable Here) The 54825A (54825N) model only has an internal LS-120 floppy drive and no internal CD-ROM drive (plus, you will likely not be able to ever boot from a USB CD-ROM drive with this model). The good news is that, by carefully opening your oscilloscope’s case, you can connect an IDE CD-ROM drive to the oscilloscope’s motherboard via a standard IDE ribbon cable. Even better news is that, although Agilent (previously, before I made this) did not have a recovery CD for this model, I have successfully combined a bootable CD-ROM.iso image with the important files on the LS-120 recovery floppy media images provided by Agilent’s technical support. Directions: • Carefully open oscilloscope chassis. This will involve removing all screws in the back (including those that go through the big rubber feet/things back there, and might also include removing the screws from the handle on the side). • Replace the failed/failing hard drive with a new 2.5″ IDE laptop hard drive. Don’t get something huge like a TB drive.
Try something smaller than 100 GB. I was successful by using an 80GB 2.5″ IDE laptop hard drive. • Take an (internal) IDE CD-ROM drive, connect the standard IDE ribbon cable to the drive, and connect the other end to the oscilloscope’s motherboard. • Take a spare desktop computer (internal) power supply, set it next to the IDE CD-ROM drive and oscilloscope, and connect one of its Molex power connectors to the power input connector of the CD-ROM drive. This is necessary, because the oscilloscope’s power supply will not have any free power connectors.
Make sure both the oscilloscope and this spare power supply are connected to your AC service. Make sure the spare desktop computer power supply is actually connected to the motherboard of a desktop PC (so you can press the power button on that PC to turn on and off the spare desktop computer power supply). • Download the file you need here: (.iso) (.md5sum). Please DO NOT hot link directly to these files.
If you wish to link to or share this, please use the URL of the current page (displayed above, under the section, “IMPORTANT: LINKING TO THIS PAGE”). • Burn the.iso image to a blank CD-ROM (do not simply copy the files from the.iso into a blank CD-ROM folder without burning the.iso file directly, as the bootable information will not carry over). • Power on the desktop computer (to power on the spare desktop computer power supply), as well as the oscilloscope. Insert the CD-ROM that you burned into the drive. Boot off the CD-ROM. If you experience problems, with a keyboard attached to the oscilloscope, go into your CMOS/BIOS settings and make sure that you have the IDE channel for the CD-ROM drive enabled, and have CD-ROM booting enabled.
• Follow the remainder of instructions contained in the README.TXT file (also in the.zip file) to begin the re-installation: The Version 4.3 software is designed for units with the FIC motherboard (i.e. VIN 030-033), and is not designed for older models with the AMI motherboard (software Version 3.5 is designed for those models). These directions worked on a 54825N and probably will work on a 54825A (which should be roughly the same, if not identical, oscilloscope), but your mileage may vary.
I make no guarantees. PLEASE CONSIDER DONATING TO MY WORK I really hope I saved you a lot of headaches (or thousands of dollars)! Please consider the fact that I put in over two entire days, staying awake consecutively for over 56 hours (yes, with no sleep) to figure all of this out and assemble this custom-made recovery CD image.
If I saved you all of this work, and saved you from spending lots of money on a new oscilloscope, please click on the following button. You will be redirected to PayPal to complete the transaction (no, you do NOT need an existing or create a new PayPal account, but just need a valid credit or debit card and PayPal will still securely process the transaction on my behalf). Suggested donation is $10, but any amount is fine and greatly appreciated! Please also include in the “Note to seller” some wonderful comments. License and Disclaimer Your download of this file/software and use of these techniques and/or file/software constitute acceptance of and agreement to the following license and disclaimer statements: ================================================== LICENSE: This disc is Copyright 2010 Pat Wilbur.
You are hereby licensed to use this software without cost to rescue a broken oscilloscope system for which you legally own all appropriate software licenses. You may copy or redistribute this software only under the same terms as your current software licenses permit, and the licenses for the software contained on this disc permit.
Software contained on this disc are copyright their respective owners, including Microsoft, Agilent, Symantec, and possibly others. The author of this disc believes that creation of this disc constitutes fair use of the floppy disk recovery data at the above Agilent FTP site URL. DISCLAIMER: The author of this CD (Pat Wilbur) assumes ABSOLUTELY NO responsibility for the operation of this CD or the following recovery software, as he did not even write it (someone online supplied the base boot CD image, and Agilent and Symantec produced the recovery software and image). No warranty for fitness, freedom from defect, or any other warranty is guaranteed, neither expressly nor implied. You agree to these terms and to hold harmless the author of this CD (Pat Wilbur) for any direct, indirect, or consequential damages as a result of using this CD or the software contained on it, and usage of this software beyond this point constitutes acceptance and agreement to these terms. If you do not wish to agree to these terms and proceed, promptly disconnect power from the device. Otherwise, if you agree to these terms, please continue.
NOTE: You are about to erase and lose ALL data on your hard drive! This includes saved test results, settings, the operating system, the software, and any other files. IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO DO THIS, or DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING, then promptly disconnect power from the device.