EEVblog #342 - Agilent 90000 Oscilloscope Teardown

[EEVblog]

! Private video

Dave.

[JoannaK]

Nice.. Wonder though what were those massive chips next to Virtex4 ..

Pitty about the wondows+touch screen, but can't have it all.. not even with that high price.

[Monkeh]

Looks like a standard mATX layout. I get the feeling that the two SATA cables on the main board are not being used as SATA. Just a convenient connector and cable. Could easily be taking a few PCI-E lanes out, actually.

Other than that, I just see a PCI card for the GPIB, an unpopulated PCI-E x4 slot, a pretty ordinary header being used for something unexciting, some USB 2.0 headers.. PWM fan control. Power seems to be standard ATX, but there's an extra connector there.. Perhaps standby power or a ready signal.

It's definitely a custom board but nothing particularly special.

[oPossum]

The blue cable is 2 USB, not SATA.

[T4P]

The unpopulated PCI-E x4 is for the high speed offload upgrade 
I see the massive number of fans even so
4 fans on the side
1 cooler master fan Okay, so it's a LGA775 processor if the processor is recent it should be the Pentium Dual Core E6700/E5700/E5400
1 smaller fan
1 centrifugal fan/blower/squirrel fan

3 heatsinks on the mATX itself
1 for the CPU
1 for the Northbridge
1 for the southbridge

8 heatsinks on the power board

10 heatsinks on the front end board ... What's the power consumption like dave? 500W?

[Short Circuit]

Customized version of the Adlink M321, the two SATA's don't exist on the standard board.


http://www.adlinktech.com/PD/web/PD_detail.php?cKind=FN&pid=802&seq=&id=&sid=

[Monkeh]

The blue cable is 2 USB, not SATA.

No it's not. The USB cables are grey.

Customized version of the Adlink M321, the two SATA's don't exist on the standard board.


http://www.adlinktech.com/PD/web/PD_detail.php?cKind=FN&pid=802&seq=&id=&sid=

Or the M321 is a marketed version of the board they were contracted to build by Agilent.

[Eliminateur]

how does the "analog/digital" infiniium part interfaces with the PC portion?, that's a a good mystery...
Could that blue "SATA" be used as a pcie 1x cable?, it's entirely possible as it's two differential pairs and the signalrate is well withing spec for a SATA 2 or SATA 3 cable...
Where's the SATA storage?, they implemented some SSD on that backplane?, wouldn't it have been far easier to put a DOM SATA module with power?


Also, how is the LCD being conected to the motherboard? that standout with the twisted pair cables could easily be a LVDS header for the LCD and touch screen....

[Monkeh]

how does the "analog/digital" infiniium part interfaces with the PC portion?, that's a a good mystery...
Could that blue "SATA" be used as a pcie 1x cable?, it's entirely possible as it's two differential pairs and the signalrate is well withing spec for a SATA 2 or SATA 3 cable...

I'm pretty confident that both the 'SATA' cables running to the main board are carrying PCI-E.

Where's the SATA storage?, they implemented some SSD on that backplane?, wouldn't it have been far easier to put a DOM SATA module with power?

There's a perfectly ordinary HDD connected via SATA. It's next to the power inlet.

Also, how is the LCD being conected to the motherboard? that standout with the twisted pair cables could easily be a LVDS header for the LCD and touch screen....

LVDS via the header between the PCI and PCI-E slots. The touchscreen will almost certainly be USB.

[Eliminateur]

ah i haven't seen the entire video yet so i didn't see the SATA HDD....

hmm if those two "funky sata" carry PCIe, then it's 2 lanes(maybe not more than pcie 1.0)..... entirely possible

edit: CCFL backlight on a 140K grand equipment?, that's scroungy...., they should've gone with retina-like ultrahigh dpi display with full white led backlight

[Monkeh]

ah i haven't seen the entire video yet so i didn't see the SATA HDD....

hmm if those two "funky sata" carry PCIe, then it's 2 lanes(maybe not more than pcie 1.0)..... entirely possible

The cables should be entirely capable of supporting PCI-E 2.0. There's no sign of any additional controllers on the board, so I don't see that it could be SAS, and SATA sounds like an obscenely, brain-damagingly stupid way to interface an oscilloscope with a control PC. Even SAS would be dumb (although saner than SATA).

I really think it's just a case of convenient, suitable cables and connectors.

[firewalker]

With this massive fans I was expecting a fair amount of dust inside. Dave, did you had it cleaned?

Alexander.

[T4P]

ah i haven't seen the entire video yet so i didn't see the SATA HDD....

hmm if those two "funky sata" carry PCIe, then it's 2 lanes(maybe not more than pcie 1.0)..... entirely possible

edit: CCFL backlight on a 140K grand equipment?, that's scroungy...., they should've gone with retina-like ultrahigh dpi display with full white led backlight

Go back and edit : This was designed when Windows Vista, go figure
Plus, Agilent isn't going to use any of the Retina-like crap. Requires more graphic muscle to drive that very high refresh rate screen
( Just an info, "retina" is actually worser quality than a TFT display, if they dipped the resolutions lower you see what i mean )

With this massive fans I was expecting a fair amount of dust inside.

I saw some dust! On the heatsinks where the front-end is.

ah i haven't seen the entire video yet so i didn't see the SATA HDD....

hmm if those two "funky sata" carry PCIe, then it's 2 lanes(maybe not more than pcie 1.0)..... entirely possible

The cables should be entirely capable of supporting PCI-E 2.0. There's no sign of any additional controllers on the board, so I don't see that it could be SAS, and SATA sounds like an obscenely, brain-damagingly stupid way to interface an oscilloscope with a control PC. Even SAS would be dumb (although saner than SATA).

I really think it's just a case of convenient, suitable cables and connectors.

SATA 3 is decently quick but the best method is still SATA 3 because PCI-E 2.0 takes 12 lanes to match SATA 3
And checking the ICH10 southbridge it reveals that it only has 4 configurable lanes of PCI-E v1.1
and that the Q45 northbridge only has PCI-E v1.1 16 lanes that cannot be configured
But there's 6 sata 2 ports so i doubt that is PCI-E

[Eliminateur]

a high dpi display would be very nice to prevent aliasing due to crappy low res DPI onscreen and give a more old-style analog display ultimate quality.
and if they need graphic powe then that motherboard is the wrong one, intel 3x/4x chipset have the crappiest GPUs known to man.

i wonder why they haven't blocked any of the normal ports on the back, for example, what happens if you plug a standard vga monitor?, or a mouse/keyboard?.
either they're there to be used or it's an oversight

didn't realize this unit was so old, i tought it was state of the art

[Short Circuit]

...
edit: CCFL backlight on a 140K grand equipment?, that's scroungy...., they should've gone with retina-like ultrahigh dpi display with full white led backlight

Cutting edge consumer class hardware are incompatible with this kind of T&M equipment or industrial stuff in general.
Availability issues when Apple or Samsung boosts a new product, and lifecycle of the part is almost less than the development time of the end product.
When you design a >$100K scope, you prefer to use components that will be available for a reasonable (and guaranteed) amount of time.

[Monkeh]

SATA 3 is decently quick but the best method is still SATA 3 because PCI-E 2.0 takes 12 lanes to match SATA 3
And checking the ICH10 southbridge it reveals that it only has 4 configurable lanes of PCI-E v1.1
and that the Q45 northbridge only has PCI-E v1.1 16 lanes that cannot be configured
But there's 6 sata 2 ports so i doubt that is PCI-E

You want to write some stupid, hacky, bodgeup driver to use a SATA bus for this?

Please ponder what SATA is and ask yourself just how much crack you're doing to even consider using it for this application. Especially stuffed on top of the Windows driver stack.

[Eliminateur]

SATA 3 is decently quick but the best method is still SATA 3 because PCI-E 2.0 takes 12 lanes to match SATA 3
And checking the ICH10 southbridge it reveals that it only has 4 configurable lanes of PCI-E v1.1
and that the Q45 northbridge only has PCI-E v1.1 16 lanes that cannot be configured
But there's 6 sata 2 ports so i doubt that is PCI-E

whaaaa??
first of all, the 16 lanes in the nortbridge are configurable and usable as you want and wish(and i've done it personally), you can plug whatever you want in whatever width you want in those lanes, so it's highly unlikely they used the BW-starved ICH lanes when you hve a low-latency northbridge host.

Also, 12 lanes of PCIE 2.0 to match sata3, are you on crack? , a SINGLE lane of PCIE 2.0 is 90% of SATA3.
for refresher, per-lane:
PCIE 1.0: 250MBPS
PCIe 2.0: 500MBPS
PCIe 3.0: 1GBPS

so for FULL SATA 3 you need only TWO lanes of PCIe 2.0

[Monkeh]

SATA 3 is decently quick but the best method is still SATA 3 because PCI-E 2.0 takes 12 lanes to match SATA 3
And checking the ICH10 southbridge it reveals that it only has 4 configurable lanes of PCI-E v1.1
and that the Q45 northbridge only has PCI-E v1.1 16 lanes that cannot be configured
But there's 6 sata 2 ports so i doubt that is PCI-E

whaaaa??
first of all, the 16 lanes in the nortbridge are configurable and usable as you want and wish(and i've done it personally), you can plug whatever you want in whatever width you want in those lanes, so it's highly unlikely they used the BW-starved ICH lanes when you hve a low-latency northbridge host.

Also, 12 lanes of PCIE 2.0 to match sata3, are you on crack? , a SINGLE lane of PCIE 2.0 is 90% of SATA3.
for refresher, per-lane:
PCIE 1.0: 250MBPS
PCIe 2.0: 500MBPS
PCIe 3.0: 1GBPS

so for FULL SATA 3 you need only TWO lanes of PCIe 2.0

T4P smokes some strong stuff.

And he needs to stop changing his name!

[T4P]

SATA 3 is decently quick but the best method is still SATA 3 because PCI-E 2.0 takes 12 lanes to match SATA 3
And checking the ICH10 southbridge it reveals that it only has 4 configurable lanes of PCI-E v1.1
and that the Q45 northbridge only has PCI-E v1.1 16 lanes that cannot be configured
But there's 6 sata 2 ports so i doubt that is PCI-E

whaaaa??
first of all, the 16 lanes in the nortbridge are configurable and usable as you want and wish(and i've done it personally), you can plug whatever you want in whatever width you want in those lanes, so it's highly unlikely they used the BW-starved ICH lanes when you hve a low-latency northbridge host.

Also, 12 lanes of PCIE 2.0 to match sata3, are you on crack? , a SINGLE lane of PCIE 2.0 is 90% of SATA3.
for refresher, per-lane:
PCIE 1.0: 250MBPS
PCIe 2.0: 500MBPS
PCIe 3.0: 1GBPS

so for FULL SATA 3 you need only TWO lanes of PCIe 2.0

HELLO. SATA 3 is 6GBPS.
I know the PCI-E x4 is from the southbridge that means the PCI-E x16 is used for the GPU itself and it can only be used if the GPU is disabled
but you can't have more then one device on the x16 and that's the Q45's limit unlike the southbridge's x4 which can be reconfigured for 4x1 but that's not the case since physically the x4 is there for an upgrade for a high-speed offloading module from Agilent
which definitely points to a SATA 2

[Monkeh]

SATA 3 is decently quick but the best method is still SATA 3 because PCI-E 2.0 takes 12 lanes to match SATA 3
And checking the ICH10 southbridge it reveals that it only has 4 configurable lanes of PCI-E v1.1
and that the Q45 northbridge only has PCI-E v1.1 16 lanes that cannot be configured
But there's 6 sata 2 ports so i doubt that is PCI-E

whaaaa??
first of all, the 16 lanes in the nortbridge are configurable and usable as you want and wish(and i've done it personally), you can plug whatever you want in whatever width you want in those lanes, so it's highly unlikely they used the BW-starved ICH lanes when you hve a low-latency northbridge host.

Also, 12 lanes of PCIE 2.0 to match sata3, are you on crack? , a SINGLE lane of PCIE 2.0 is 90% of SATA3.
for refresher, per-lane:
PCIE 1.0: 250MBPS
PCIe 2.0: 500MBPS
PCIe 3.0: 1GBPS

so for FULL SATA 3 you need only TWO lanes of PCIe 2.0

HELLO. SATA 3 is 6GBPS.
I know the PCI-E x4 is from the southbridge that means the PCI-E x16 is used for the GPU itself and it can only be used if the GPU is disabled
but you can't have more then one device on the x16 and that's the Q45's limit unlike the southbridge's x4 which can be reconfigured for 4x1 but that's not the case since physically the x4 is there for an upgrade for a high-speed offloading module from Agilent
which definitely points to a SATA 2

6Gbps. Not 6GBps.

You read the ICH10 datasheet very, very wrong. It has SIX lanes, configurable as 6 x1 or 1 x4 + 2 x1.

There is no way in hell they're using SATA for this. They'd have to be utterly insane to do so. Please think before opening your mouth.

[Eliminateur]

HELLO. SATA 3 is 6GBPS.
I know the PCI-E x4 is from the southbridge that means the PCI-E x16 is used for the GPU itself and it can only be used if the GPU is disabled
but you can't have more then one device on the x16 and that's the Q45's limit unlike the southbridge's x4 which can be reconfigured for 4x1 but that's not the case since physically the x4 is there for an upgrade for a high-speed offloading module from Agilent
which definitely points to a SATA 2

As monkeh pointed, you made an order of magnitude error in your units for SATA, SATA3 is 600MBPS (that is, MEGABYTES)

Also, you're wrong on the limit, the pcie lanes from the root complex have NOITHING to do with the GPU, the internal GPU is disabled ONLY if you attach another GPU to the system(that is ANY GPU IN ANY BUS, if you put a pci vga, it will disable itself) and that's a limitation of the GPU.
the lanes are normal pcie lanes which can be used REGARDLESS of the internal GPU.
And as i've said before: i've tested that myself

i.e.: grab any normal PC with integrated graphics, plug a pciex1 device(usb adapter, soundcard, sata controller) into the pciex16 slot and MAGIC, it works!

[T4P]

The x16 is not spread out in this case but you still don't get what i mean
The x16 is not reconfigurable, of course electrically it works but you are like wasting 15 lanes because that isn't configurable
Unlike the x4 on the ICH10 that can be randomly shuffled between 4x1 and 1x4

600MBPS = 8GT/s
Alright! I stand corrected.
It still takes 2 lanes and that is definitely from the SATA
How else do you think what sort of magic Agilent did to make the x4 slot from the southbridge work together with another 4 lanes?
There's only 4 lanes from the ICH10

[Short Circuit]

And PCI-express it is; 'therory of operation', servicemanual page 175/176;

The backplane board is essentially a device on the PCI-Express bus connected by two SATA
cables to the motherboard.

[Monkeh]

The x16 is not spread out in this case but you still don't get what i mean
The x16 is not reconfigurable, of course electrically it works but you are like wasting 15 lanes because that isn't configurable
Unlike the x4 on the ICH10 that can be randomly shuffled between 4x1 and 1x4

600MBPS = 8GT/s and PCI-E is rated in GT/s!

Please stop arguing numbers you don't understand. Real PCI-E 2.0 throughput is 500MB/s per pair.

The ICH10, once again, has six lanes, not four.

And, I quote from the 4 series datasheet:

x1 width support simultaneously with the sDVO functionality which is
multiplexed onto the PEG port. Such shared use facilitates ADD2+/MEC
implementation.

Which, in plain English, means you can use the x16 slot without onboard graphics, or the first lane with onboard graphics.

And, as Short Circuit has just kindly dug out of the service manual, it is indeed using a PCI-E bus from the motherboard to the FPGA on the scope side. Thank you, you've been remarkably learning-resistant, good night.

[Short Circuit]

Another nice image from the SM: