Latest addition: A Tektronix TLA715 Logic Analyzer- pending shipment

[THDplusN_bad]

Good Day to the group,

I have been "passive" in this forum for quite a while, but decided to get out of the rut now.

Background: I was looking for another logic analyzer for some time, after I have sold a HP 1662A "boat anchor" about 2 years ago. The 1662A was fine for most jobs, but it was large, its memory was limited to 4k and its X-Windows GUI was simply out-of-date. I am using an inexpensive "USB-box" Logic Analyzer manufactured by IKALOGIC for I2C/SPI debugging. It does its job, but it lacks of features such as conditional triggering or the like---

I wanted to share my enthusiasm with you T&M equipment addicts here.: I am currently waiting for my TLA715 to be shipped over to my home here in Germany; scored that from eBay. I have followed several auctions and my eBay watch list was full of alternative items - as I have absolutely wanted some probes to be included... So, I was glad to find a reasonably priced TLA715 after some time. 

But, of course, a few days after the above auction, a nice TEKTRONIX TLA5201 in apparently good condition showed up on epay. Including some probes. That would have been an alternative unit for me. See 262883634309 (no affiliation).

So, I just wanted to thank users David Spicer, nctnico, TerraHertz for their hints, and most of all TiN for his superb work and lots of very useful information such as https://xdevs.com/fix/tla714/
Good karma on you, chaps.

I plan to check the hardware for usual failures (replace capacitors, if necessary; replace the PC motherboard's CMOS-battery etc.).
Then I will clean the unit and upgrade to a solid-state disk, install MS Win XP OS and the TLA application SW release version 5.1.
I intend to control the TLA715 remotely from a standard laptop PC via LAN.

I will provide some irregular updates here, so please have some patience.

Cheers,

THD+N_bad

[TerraHertz]

So, I just wanted to thank users David Spicer, nctnico, TerraHertz for their hints, and most of all TiN for his superb work and lots of very useful information such as https://xdevs.com/fix/tla714/
Good karma on you, chaps.

Best of luck with the shipping!

I also want to mention that David Spicer, an old friend of mine, passed away on 14th August 2017.
There will be an obituary on my site, but it's proving difficult to write.

[Ice-Tea]

What modules are installed? As an FYI, I have some available

[THDplusN_bad]

TerraHertz [..] I also want to mention that David Spicer, an old friend of mine, passed away on 14th August 2017.

Good Day,

@TerraHertz: I am very sorry to hear about your loss - may your friend rest in peace.

Yes, I am still pending delivery. More than a week's time was spent for ground transportation and prep. work for customs and export duties. 
Well, finally, it is in transit to Europe at this point. Shipment costs were reasonable. I will share a few details later - and I am keeping my fingers crossed that the unit will arrive in good shape.

@ Ice-Tea: Thanks for the offer, but the included TLA7N4 plug-in module shall be more than enough for me...

In the mean time, I have not been lazy, but finished the following in preparation:

• Purchased a standard mSata to 44-pin IDE adapter & a mSATA 128 GByte SSD
• I have used an external USB-to-IDE adapter and formatted and partitioned the SSD. Two partitions at 60GByte each shall be plenty... 
• As I am not sure if the TLA715's mother board & BIOS supports booting from an external USB memory: Prepared a Windows 98 start-up floppy disk. I did not expect to ever deal with 3.5" floppy disks again. But I still have some here; bought 3 years back.
• I will re-cap the PC motherboard and probably the TLA7N4 plug-in. I have ordered Ta-capacitors to match - all sourced from a reliable local eBay seller. High-reliable cap types where possible, manufactured by AVX and other brands. Gosh, our dear catalogue dealers such as Conrad, Reichelt and RS Components are selling these for high prices these days. 50€ cents for a 100µF/16V cap?
• I have turned an old PACE Tweezer soldering iron into one which I can use for the re-capping job. I will provide a brief write-up of this next week (in the Other equipment section)

Stay tuned...

Thanks,

THD+N_bad

[nctnico]

Why would you want to replace the capacitors? I'd leave it as is because it is easy to do more damage than good. If it ain't broken don't ruin it!

[THDplusN_bad]

Good Day,

Hi nctnico, well, I am a big fan of the "Dont' fix it if it ain't broken"-theory in general.

Some background here: I have been "tinkering" with home computers and PCs since the venerable Commodore C64, say the mid-80s. And my own statistics show that Tantalum capacitors can pose a real problem.

SMD Ta-capacitors were the culprit of 3 major defects in approx. 12 PC-motherboards including an Amiga 600. They have shortened and / or leaked their electrolyte and have caused excessive PCB corrosion beyond any repair. This has happened in one PC mother board and in the power supply of a pricey Tektronix 2465B oscilloscope from the early 90s. (Side-note: Dipped Ta-capacitors have taken out a few plug-ins of my Tek 5000-series/7000-series o'scopes, too)

One may want to argue over the thermal and mechanical stress which capacitors replacement causes, and the probability of early failures of new components vs. the reliability of aged capacitors. However, these TLA715 Logic Analyzers are > 15 years old by now. Several components on the motherboard are reaching the end of their operational life time or "the other end" of the bath tub curve.

I have decided to accept the related risks of re-capping, but I truly want to counter the massive damage which failed Ta-capacitors can cause. Capacitor technology has improved significantly over the past two decades. With my "tweezer" soldering iron, the removal of SMD components is almost trivial, so let's see how this will work out.

Cheers,

THD+N_bad

[THDplusN_bad]

Good Day,

so, the unit has arrived in good shape last week. Which is a relief, considering the distance it has travelled around the globe. Ex-Intel labs/CA/USA equipment as it seems - interesting.
 
The unit boots up fine to a Win2k logon screen, as described by the seller. Accessories includes a variety of probes and a LAN PC-card. Very happy. 

I am in the process of re-assembly after a good clean of the interior and a few other actions. I will post a few pictures and a write-up later.

Cheers,

THD+N_bad

[THDplusN_bad]

Good Day,

other priorities have kicked in, so my write-up is a bit delayed.
In brief:

• Re-assembled the TLA715
  
• Installed Windows XP pro OEM, PC CARD network adapter, TOR browser, and a few "tools" such as Adobe PDF reader on the TLA715. It passes all self diagnostic tests as it should. 
  
• I had to try harder than expected to get the TLA715 controlled remotely. I was able to finally get TLA release version 5.8.151.0 working on the remote PC (runs on Win 7 Enterprise 64-bit), and with TLA release version 5.1 installed on the TLA715 itself.
  
• I have also found a way to overcome what seems to be a common problem; which was that the TLA700 software on the remote PC has detected the TLA mainframe, but has failed the TLA7N4 logic analyzer module itself. I will provide more details over the next few weeks...
  

Cheers,

THD+N_bad

[THDplusN_bad]

Good Day to my fellow T&M equipment enthusiasts,

so, I finally found some time for my write-up. I trust that some of the TLA-owners here might consider this useful.

I have also found a few postings here and in other forums where a remotely-connected PC fails to detect the Logic Analyzer modules installed in a TLA704/714/715/721. I have encountered similar issues, and have found a solution, which I have posted here: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/how-to-remotely-control-a-tektronix-tla715-logic-analyzer-under-ms-win-7/

Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year to you all.

Cheers,

THD+N_bad

* Checked main board for any leaking capacitors, particularly the 5V supply rail. All capacitors are made by AVX and seemed in good condition.
Removed a 22 µF capacitor and it tested good using my PEAK ESR60 tester (the ESR60 is not perfect, but gives a good indication of the cap's general condition). So, I have reconsidered and have skipped my original plan which was replace all SMD Ta-caps.
* Checked SDRAM module is properly seated. Installed a 2nd 256 MByte SDRAM PC-133 module, bought from https://www.speicher.de/ via ebay for 27€.
* Cleaned main fans on rear, front bezel, keyboard, trackball, housing and CPU heat sink. Used a mix of IPA / phenylalcohol and water as per the service manual to clean the LCD, all outer panels.
I have used about 200 ml of IPA total, a shoe brush and an old baking tray and some microfibre cloths for cleaning.
* Checked NVRAM on PC motherboard and archived content / BIOS using a Win 98 boot floppy disk and uniflash from http://www.rainbow-software.org/uniflash/
   * uniflash UNIFLASH -SAVE BACKUP.BIN -QUIT
* Installed new solid state disk/SSD to 44-pin IDE interface behind front bezel and replaced the system-HDD with the SSD
* Unsed nLite to create a new bootable CD from Windows XP OEM install CD. I am usually very sceptical about any 3rd party installers/tools, but http://www.nliteos.com/ is really worth a look.
best advice on nLite: https://lifehacker.com/386526/slipstream-service-pack-3-into-your-windows-xp-installation-cd
* Installed Windows XP pro
* Installed TLA release version 5.1 on TLA 715, see tektronix_Softwareinstallation_TLASWDOWN_V51SP1.pdf
(see https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/remote-tla-clientserver-sw/msg440817/?topicseen#msg440817 on TCP/IP EtherNet networking upgrade from TLA v3.2 up to v5.1
* Installed TLA to PCI bridge using the OEM driver from Tektronix
* Installed TLA 5.1 SP1 patch file: https://www.tek.com/node/803857-software/tla-application-registry-patch
* Installed a 10/100 MBit Network card, Sophos antivirus and a webbrowser. The latter was a very frustrating experience, read below..

Midori webbrowser http://midori-browser.org/, Midori had a few errors at start-up, see https://bugs.launchpad.net/midori/+bug/1464836 and I have ended up copying all DLLs from the /midori/bin filder to /windows/system, which removed some errors.
It still crashed and was utterly slow, so I have removed it.
Qupzilla did not even install correctly, was showing some errors at start, so dumped, too.
Ice dragon was missing a DLL "api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0.dll", so no luck either
Vivaldi did not even install.
Same for Seamonkey, which gave a message that it requires Win XP SP2 and failed to detect that it is running on a WIN XP SP3 system.
Maxthon did not show any reaction when trying to install it.
Light - from https://sourceforge.net/projects/lightfirefox/postdownload?source=dlp was a complete fail, also, as it did not install properly.
Palemoon installed, showed no reaction whatsover when started.
SR ware Iron- did not support the OS in my TLA715
Finally found the TOR browser, which installed and runs fine. https://www.torproject.org

* I wanted to replaced the TEAC CD-ROM drive with a used CD-R/W/DVD-ROM driver from company Global Notebook UG via ebay for 15€. Two drives have failed. I suspect the BIOS is not very tolerant. Re-installed the original CD-ROM drive.
* "Upgraded" the TLA7N4 module to max. memory and state freq. https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/tla-hacks-)/50/
* Upgrade completed successfully! Option 7S (200MHz State, 4M Depth)*
* Install TLA release on remote control PC system, and connect to TLA 715

To do:

* Fix broken Power Switch of TLA 715

[Ordinaryman1971]

Hi, not sure if you still need a switch but I have what's left of mine so if you need just parts I'm more than willing to share. Mine broke when i was taking the screen assembly off so... it's for grabs. The plastic case broke on the back but the rest of the switch is fine. Let me know.. .by the way I wasn't able to source replacement for this switch, I bought a whole board.

[minatko]

* uniflash UNIFLASH -SAVE BACKUP.BIN -QUIT

I have the same logic analyzer and I used this command yesterday. It haven't helped me, but first things first.

I bought the device on ebay for a rather low price. The seller assured that the device is in full working order, but after recieving and launching I faced a loading error. It printed "Operating system not found".
Further research revialed one more issue, the BIOS settings resets after each reboot. Certainly, I had changed the battery. The fault was a soldering defect in battery socket, after fixing it the setting got saved. Another issue was missing operating system, I could install no one of them. I thought it could be a broken HDD, since it was detected and offered to install OS, but OS didn't boot from it. Tying another HDD didn't solve the issue. It was a bad soldering again, this time in the HDD connector. So I faced two bad soldering in one device, which is really weird, particularly in a device from such a vendor.
However, I fixed all the issues preventing an OS launch, and got the device to work. The analyzer part works fine, I tried a couple of software versions, windows XP and 2000, even the network controll of the the device.

At this stage, I noticed that CDROM and PCMCIA don't work in Windows XP. CDROM doen't even open after Windows loading, but works in the safe mode. PCMCIA cards aren't seen by the OS and froze up the Windows after plugging or unplugging. In Windows 2000 plug-and-play works fine. This issues remain open.
My next effort was to upgade the hardware. I installed new memory (2x256MB), whereby 512MB memory doesn't work. Also I installed a SSD through IDE-to-mSATA adapter. It had taken some time, because my adapter turned out to be broken and broke the first SSD I installed. Furthermore, I haven't a PC with IDE or mSATA, so I couldn't check adapter and disk separately. Nevertheless, I make it work, and the upgrade really speeded things up.

The next part is the CPU. The standart CPU is SL4ZL - Intel Pentium III 733 MHz Coppermine. Pentium III... I used it in some PCs about 20 years ago, trying to remember... So, it has a few sockets, including FC-PGA1 and FC-PGA2, which are slightly different. And a few cores, including Tualatin and Coppermine. The top Pentium III processor is Intel Tualatin Pentium-IIIs 1.4GHz(512K), which has twice a frequency and a larger cache. It also has a different socket, but the difference is slight, and there is an adapter for it. ( https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Tualatin-Pentium-IIIs-1-4GHz-512K-include-On-chip-Socket-Adapter-/281238323137 ). Another problem is the BIOS. Analyzer's BIOS doesn't support Tualatin, and requires some modifications for working with it. I thought OK, and bought the top Coppermine (1000MHz), which must be faster. It didn't launch. Both the Tualatin an Coppermine CPUs works fine in another motherboard in a casual PC. Further research led me to a screenshot, where the similar device booting with 1000MHz Coppemine ( https://imgur.com/a/ZNVAbjV ). I noticed the different BIOS version on the screen. Mine is 1.00.01 and 1.00.03 on the screenshot. I asked the post author for his BIOS image, but he already sold his devices, he send me two files, but he don't know what versin they are. I also found the 1.00.02 BIOS in the network ( http://profilabs.com.ua/TLA715_DUMP.BIN ) . UNIFLASH successfuly save my BIOS to file. But when I tried to flash the fresh BIOS with UNIFLASH, I got an error. It seems like there are a write protection, and the BIOS can be flashed only with programmer or the original floppy disk (UPGADE7UP Option 41).
To get UPGADE7UP Option 41 will be even too fine. It would be fine if device owners with the 1.00.03 BIOS version post here, we can try to save a BIOS firmware. I will report any of my result.

[RomDump]

UNIFLASH successfuly save my BIOS to file. But when I tried to flash the fresh BIOS with UNIFLASH, I got an error. It seems like there are a write protection, and the BIOS can be flashed only with programmer or the original floppy disk (UPGADE7UP Option 41).
To get UPGADE7UP Option 41 will be even too fine. It would be fine if device owners with the 1.00.03 BIOS version post here, we can try to save a BIOS firmware.

BIOS upgrade Disk for v1.00.03  from Tektronix is part number 063-3597-02. Don't know about UPGADE7UP and if it included the BIOS upgrade disk.

[minatko]

Do you have it? I couldn't it anywhere.

[RomDump]

Do you have it? I couldn't it anywhere.

I inquired about it before and Tektronix gave me the part number. They also charge for the disk. Don't know if it is in a special format as they didn't appear to want to give it out for free. Contact them to find out more.

[smgvbest]

Here's the content of the 1.02 floppy for those interested with the flash utility.
if anyone can read out a 1.03 bios and upload it to share that would be great

BTW  make the floppy bootable,   write the files to it then reboot from floppy for BIOS update.
that's all the instructions say.

EDIT
Warning:   I did load this bios update which was a 1.02 same as my TLA715,   it read the BIOS.ROM and PLATFORM.BIN files and writes to flash.   no interupting it.
my TLA is bricked.  it will no boot to even show the BIOS information.

proceed with caution if you want to try this.

now to see if I can figure out how to un-brink my TLA
 

[alexian79]

I recently picked up TLA715 from ebay, in not booting condition(stuck on WIN2000) boot screen.
It came with TLA7AA1 and TLA7PG2 modules and P6810 probe.
I did changed HDD and updated to Windows XP. and installed 5.1 TLAtools
Problem is that it does not connect to the probe. I tested 3 different probes(picked up from ebay) and have same error. I am waiting for new TLA7AA4 module to test against that.
I have never used such device before so don't know what to expect, and how to use it. Any suggestion very appreciated.

[alexian79]

Maaaan, as soon as I posted I have found the issue, I was connection probes channel label up, and that was wrong, it is actually other way around, I had a feeling that it was not connecting well.

[dietert1]

We used to have a modular analyzer to be run inside a VXI crate. The best thing about these are the TVS621 TVS625 and TVS645 digital scope plugins. For example a four channel scope with 5 Gsps can now be had for about $ 1K. Don't know whether it fits into a TLA715.

Regards, Dieter