Hallo i am working on the TDS7404 to get it going again. i posted on other topics but there isn t much response coming anymore. Maybe because it is a retired topic.
a few things i want to clear up first i saw in the CSA7404 topic that it was easy to use a default RS232 outbreak cable from one of those old isa cards .
After trying over and over with a freezing console output and scope freezing at random places i decided to make my own custom 3 wired -> Tek-2-RS232 convertor
And with succes. Now it showed me lots of output and no freeze, compared with the default fully wired outbreak cable i used before. (could have been possible the wired 2nd channel on the J790)
i bought my scope with a corrupted boot messaging it said: need calibration and was in a sort of cal state? i didnt get this error out and together with diagnostic error 463 -> OptionST_ok ->Serial Masking, it looked like corruption in my eyes.
despite of the above spoken 463 error, the diagnostic scan gave ALL PASS, i couldn t test the scope inputs and triggers at all because of the call state and corrupted Options.
- investigating the trigger chip gave me one chip discolored and one chip a small hole next to one pin. It gave me the thought of how can all (trigger)diagnoses Pass. is it that my chips are still usable, so i will assume that for now.
after i found out that doing a fresh OS install (winxp) instead of W98 didn t get me out of the strange error( read corruption). so i decided to swap NVram the battery.
In the other topic i wrote that i externally feeded the NVram with +4.6 and gnd (to pins 5,17) and did a battery convert.
From that moment things were different:
the scope "service calibration mode or how shall i call it " corruption looked like solved. i can boot into the unit now and change settings.
but also my serial and option key are both empty, not having done a clearDB in the topscript at all.
so what next... let s restore W98 my old original image (i dont know if the scope ever worked with this W98 installation because a lot of files were dated 2018??).
and from my assumption somebody worked on the unit before.
So while looking arround inside the orignal OS in the under the vxboot folder i found the calcons folder, which only had folders named "12" & "16".
Onces rolling back to my before made ghost image of the original W98 the key were back again.
So while booting up the unit the .SN and .KEY files are read from disk if they are in place of course. and yet i still didn t do any clearDB =1 action.
So next up was running the scope diagnostics ( output below) again and all errors include 463 were gone. Only thing left was under MISC it gave me only one error 531 (needs calibration).
So far so good. Next step is to solve the calibration error 531. So after waiting for about 20 minutes until the status under calibration showed - TEMP - i ran Calibrate. ( see output below)
i ran this with case opened and a big full speed blowing fan over the ACQ board and to give you the advise never power-on the scope without a good airflow or you ll burn out parts.
>> at this point info or tips are needed about the CAL output, what can the cal message point me to and why does it say so many: "can't open file" even if the files are present like "16"
now with the new so called "Tek-2-RS232 convertor":
i ran the diagnosing which outputted to hyperterm:
DIAGNOSTIC EXECUTION begin
0x34fe320 (digHFTask): cc_saveBank: can't open file C:/vxBoot/calCons/16
0x34fe320 (digHFTask): cc_saveBank: can't open file C:/vxBoot/calCons/16
OptionST not tested. (option not enabled)
BK2 not tested (option not enabled)DIAGNOSTIC EXECUTION finished
and i ran Calibration outputted to hyperterm:
CALIBRATION EXECUTION begin
0x34a1968 (phaseCalAfterDiags): cc_saveBank: can't open file C:/vxBoot/calCons/16
0x34a1968 (phaseCalAfterDiags): cc_saveBank: can't open file C:/vxBoot/calCons/16
0x365fd70 (CalWatch): Temperature transition out of SPC-supporting range.
0x34fd590 (SPC task): cc_saveBank: can't open file C:/vxBoot/calCons/16
0x34fd590 (SPC task): cc_saveBank: can't open file C:/vxBoot/calCons/16
0x34fd590 (SPC task): cc_loadV: CC_TRIGdcGain1c was 0; clipped
0x34fd590 (SPC task): cc_loadV: CC_TRIGdcGain1d was 0; clipped
0x34fd590 (SPC task): cc_loadV: CC_TRIGdcGain2c was 0; clipped
0x34fd590 (SPC task): cc_loadV: CC_TRIGdcGain2d was 0; clipped
0x34fd590 (SPC task): cc_loadV: CC_TRIGdcGain3a was 0; clipped
0x34fd590 (SPC task): cc_loadV: CC_TRIGdcGain3b was 0; clipped
0x34fd590 (SPC task): cc_loadV: CC_TRIGdcGain4a was 0; clipped
0x34fd590 (SPC task): cc_loadV: CC_TRIGdcGain4b was 0; clipped
0x34fd590 (SPC task): cc_restoreBank: can't open file C:/vxBoot/calCons/9
0x34fd590 (SPC task): cc_restoreBank: can't open file C:/vxBoot/calCons/14
0x34fd590 (SPC task): cc_restoreBank: can't open file C:/vxBoot/calCons/13
0x34fd590 (SPC task): cc_restoreBank: can't open file C:/vxBoot/calCons/11
0x34fd590 (SPC task): cc_restoreBank: can't open file C:/vxBoot/calCons/10
0x34fd590 (SPC task): cc_saveBank: can't open file C:/vxBoot/calCons/12
0x365fd70 (CalWatch): Temperature transition into SPC-supporting range.
[editted:]
at start (CalWatch): Temperature transition
out of SPC-supporting rangeat the end (CalWatch): Temperature transition
into SPC-supporting range.