New Agilent scopes

[hacklordsniper]

I decided to box-up my DSO-X and send it back. I tried one more time to turn it on and as i left it it finaly did after ~ 10 minuttes. And now turns on normally but it takes little longer than it was before.

Im happy my scope is working again
Im not happy not knowing what is happening to it and if i return it now they will just return it back as working, no fault

[_Sin]

I decided to box-up my DSO-X and send it back. I tried one more time to turn it on and as i left it it finaly did after ~ 10 minuttes. And now turns on normally but it takes little longer than it was before.

Im happy my scope is working again
Im not happy not knowing what is happening to it and if i return it now they will just return it back as working, no fault

That almost sounds like it was doing some kind of flashing/resetting operation during start-up, or else it was in a bad state and maybe needed external input, and needed time to complete (or to timeout and revert to normal).

Good to know it's not a total hardware failure.

[Rufus]

I decided to box-up my DSO-X and send it back. I tried one more time to turn it on and as i left it it finaly did after ~ 10 minuttes. And now turns on normally but it takes little longer than it was before.

I have seen mine get stuck on power up looping a sequence of button LEDs with (I think) blank screen a couple of times. Just quickly cycled power and it came up OK. It never did that before installing the 01.20.2011063000 firmware update.

I would imagine the LEDs indicate progress through booting and/or self test and something is failing and restarting or looping.

I suspect it is a marginal firmware bug in the new version. Has anyone tried 'downgrading' firmware? Might be a solution if yours is particularly prone to the problem.

[shadowless]

Easter egg hint from Agilent:
It has something to do with the TV show "Lost"
It also is activated through the soft key buttons - it doesn't have anything to do with the knobs and/or buttons above the BNCs.

Other finds:
When you press WAVEGEN then Settings, pressing the second softkey from the right 4 times, a window pops up showing the function generator parameters. Pressing the softkey 4 more time, the window closes. That's not mentioned in the User's Guide.

[hacklordsniper]

Whatever i tried i could not find the easter egg 

[mikeselectricstuff]

It seems very odd that they've removed the trial licenses. Oddly enough, the trial for the U1881A power measurement software does seem to still be available.

Just did some digging, and found that although the trials page is empty, there are still trial request links on the product pages for the individual licenses. This also applies to older scopes.
Start here and filter by your scope model, then select the option and find the trials tab.

[shadowless]

Your scope has one leg out the door, better don't kill for the sake of an easter egg

[hacklordsniper]

Your scope has one leg out the door, better don't kill for the sake of an easter egg

Well my scope is getting harder and harder to boot every time. I regret for buying it. I also regret that they better did not implement something more useful in this scope that a easter egg probably showing something from stupid tv series, this is not a toy its high-end oscilloscope. But since its already inside i wanted to see it.

I will poke my scope little bit more before i ship it to Agilent. Im hoping maybe in closer future they will solve problems and will replace my scope with revised error free scope when this one flies away to silicon heaven 

[saturation]

If the error is repeatable but transient, video it and ship the scope back with a video of the CD or even a youtube link, and explain how the error occurs.  We've already done this with the DMM 1272a bug.  Keep us posted with their response.

I decided to box-up my DSO-X and send it back. I tried one more time to turn it on and as i left it it finaly did after ~ 10 minuttes. And now turns on normally but it takes little longer than it was before.

Im happy my scope is working again
Im not happy not knowing what is happening to it and if i return it now they will just return it back as working, no fault

[shadowless]

Give them a call. I am sure agilent will solve your problem.

[plesa]

Has anyone else found this free upgrade link (other than here)??

I've asked the question a few times, but no response.

No Google hits, other than here, after I posted the link.

No comments on the Facebook posting.

What's it mean??

Murray

I just receive the free option, but bellow is the additional information.

Thank you for your purchase of an Agilent oscilloscope. The offer of a free upgrade was a limited time offer to people who received and completed a special "offer" registration. Since you did not complete that registration, you are technically not eligible for this offer, as explained in the original email below.  However, since the correct process and eligibility requirements were not clear, we will fulfill your request for an upgrade at no charge. You should receive an email with the details of your free upgrade within the next 2 days.

I apologize for any confusion and hope you continue to choose Agilent oscilloscope.

Sincerely,
Agilent Technologies Oscilloscopes

[Dad-O-Rama]

Ok, that makes sense. It's a plus for Agilent that they are willing to extend the offer beyond what they originally planned. Though seems as word got out, it would be hard to limit it...

Murray

[_Sin]

Yes, I got a similar message. No license yet though.

[tnt]

At first I got a refusal, then I insited a bit, and finally got a similar response  (actually, the exact same ...).
Got the license yesterday

[shadowless]

Agilent Technologies Oscilloscopes:

The easter egg has been found! For those of you who would like to see it, use the back button until there are no softkey menus displayed, then using the softkey buttons 1-6 (from left to right) enter the following key combination:

1 - 6 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 2

now there's a down counter on the bottom left of the screen that started at 108.

[hacklordsniper]

After the countdown finishes there is some strange symbols probably from the series. They disapear after reboot

[shadowless]

Didn't wait the the end of the entire count down. Just pressed key 6 4times it returned back to normal.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Maybe they've spotted the clock issue and are changing the firmware so it deletes expired licenses... I'm amazed this ever worked at all...

I could bet that you are absolutely right. Probably they expect that bigger buyers like serious companies will not do that and they would just buy license they need.

BTW had a quick play with a 6000 trial (these are still on the website) & fiddling with the clock - after expiry it does appear to delete the license, but it doesn't seem to set any marker to prevent reinstallation after setting the clock back again. will know in about 14 days if there's anything more subtlehidden away...
 

Just to confirm 16 days after installing MSO6000 trials and winding the clock back to 2001 they are still working - anyone tried the trials on the new DSOX firmware?

[hacklordsniper]

I can confirm all trials work fine on the DSO-X 3000 new firmware, i have them installed from the day of release (not sure when it was)

[marmad]

Re-watching Dave's review of the Agilent 2000 X Series Infiniivision scope with the inclination to buy, I don't see much mention of the triggering capabilities.

From what I can see in the review, and from looking through the manual online, the scope appears to missing two of the most basic triggering functions found on the cheaper DSOs - slope (rise / fall time) - and alternate (separate triggers for each channel).  While I can see getting by without the slope triggering, it seems to me the lack of alternate triggers really limits the power of a two (or more) channel scope - especially if you only want the DSO - not the MSO.

But perhaps I've missed something.  Can any owner of one of the 2000 series please let me know if it does in fact allow you to set separate triggers for each channel?  Thanks!

[mikeselectricstuff]

I can't think why either of these trigger modes would be very useful, although alt would be easy enough for them to implement.
In fact I find that the fact that Autoscale on my Owon handleld scope enables alt triggering really annoying, as it gives confusing results when you are looking at the relationship between waveforms (e.g. clock and data) and don't realise it's in Alt trig mode.
 

[marmad]

I can't think why either of these trigger modes would be very useful, although alt would be easy enough for them to implement.

Seriously?  I think it's a really nice feature of DSOs (at least I never saw an analog scope with it) - for when you're trying to look closely at two signals related in time - but not linked by a common element (edge, width, etc) to trigger them both on.  Having just gotten my first DSO 2 months ago (after 30 odd years of analog scopes), I've already used it on several occasions.

In fact I find that the fact that Autoscale.....

Now that's something I don't find useful! 
 

[mikeselectricstuff]

In fact I find that the fact that Autoscale.....

Now that's something I don't find useful! 

Can't say I use it much on a desktop scope, but quite useful on a handleld which has a more fiddly user interface.

[shadowless]

I don't think there is alternate trigger. And the measurement is limited to 4 i think...total waste of screen space and too little to work with on a 4 channel scope.

They should improve the usability of the scope by learning from the cheaper scope.  I hope Agilent is listening and improving on the firmware.

[mikeselectricstuff]

I don't think there is alternate trigger. And the measurement is limited to 4 i think...total waste of screen space and too little to work with on a 4 channel scope.

They should improve the usability of the scope by learning from the cheaper scope.  I hope Agilent is listening and improving on the firmware.

Not sure how often it would be useful to look at more then 4 measurements at a time - don't think I've ever used more than 2 - being able to see most of the screen is more important most of the time.