HP 1651B Logic Analyzer Fatal Error

[ralphj1]

One of my HP 1651B logic analyzers passes POST, but fails when executing the OS.  A fatal error is reported with a reference number.  No mention of fatal errors is made in service manual.  Web searches don't turn up anything.  Has anyone experienced this problem or have documentation details?

[Silveruser]

I assume you've tried another boot disk, those things are getting rather old. I agree the manuals are not of much use. A few voltage test points not much more.

[Stray Electron]

  I haven't looked in this case but for a lot of HP equipment you can get download the latest version of the OS software from HP/Agilent/Keysight's web site. Have you tried a new copy from them? You'll probably need a 3 1/2" floppy drive on you PC to create the OS disk but you can buy ones that plug into USB for about $20.

[scopeman]

Hello.

I just acquired one of these analyzers that appears to be operational but is missing the boot disk. Does anyone have a copy of the files or knows where to find them or would you be so kind to make a copy of the boot disk for me?

I looked on Keysight's support site but was not able to find them there.

Thank you,

Sam Reaves
Moderator
LeCroy_Owners_Group

[Silveruser]

Scopeman, the files to make a boot disk are here: http://www.keysight.com/main/software.jspx?ckey=sw566&lc=eng&cc=CA&nid=-536900196.536896433&id=sw566

Some good instructions here: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/hp_agilent_equipment/conversations/topics/57789

Gotchas: The disk format is old even if you have a moderm 3.5 drive it may not work. I tried an USB 3.5 drive and no go.  Had to buy a new (to me) IBM PC - $10 at the surplus store.

If all else fails PM me your mailing address and we'll see if the postal system is stilll working

George

[scopeman]

Hello George and all,

Well a kind member of the HP/Agilent Yahoo! group sent me a few disks with the firmware on it and I was able to boot my analyzer and get working boot disks. There is a caveat however. I did have another member send me a couple of disks that made it through 90% of the boot process before it failed with a fatal error. So the user that said he got this failure it could be that the boot disks that he has are for an analyzer that has 1.XX EPROM (internal EPROM firmware, not the operating system boot) firmware and he is trying to boot the operating system version 2 or vice versa.

The operating system disk major revision level and the EPROM firmware must match. So a 1.xx EPROM and a 1.xx opsys is a go and a 2.xx EPROM and a 2.xx opsys is a go but you can not mix levels. Also 165XA and 165xB op sys disks are not interchangeable.

If you can find a true MSDOS system with real floppy (not a USB one) you can use the files from the HP/Agilent site (I put a copy up on the Yahoo! site as well for 2.xx Opsys) with the included LifUtil to make a bootable disk. But it must be a true MSDOS system as the LifUtil needs direct access to the floppy drive controller to create the files. The disc (it was disc in those days. I think disk was a made up word) sectoring IIRC is as follows: 1024Bytes, 5 sectors per track, 77 tracks, 2 sides and 144 files per side. I think an interleave of 1 or 2 will work.

Once you have a bootable disk copy it in the analyzer. The copies seem to boot faster than the LifUtil made ones (it could be my imagination but the asterisk blinks faster when the code is loading).

I have tried to use various disk imaging software but this far I have not been successful in making an image that can be recreated and also bootable on the analyzer. So when you make copies make a few.

Some useful notes:

The drives in the 165X  analyzers do have a 34 pin connector but they are not pinned like modern (well 80's) PC floppy drives. The odd pins that are normally grounds are shared with +12V , +5V and ground so if you were to plug a regular 1.44MB or 720K floppy drive in there you might blow up the supply in the analyzer. I did note that the even pins seem compatible so it could be possible to make a cable that could convert the drive.

However the original drive is 600RPM vs. 300RPM (500K transfer rate). Standard 144MB drives are