Tek CSA7404/TDS7000 repair project (Upgraded memory/CPU)

[TiN]

If there's a collection of NVRAM dumps and their options

No need for that, need just little time, as there is way to generate option keys for any S/N
I am in progress of writing article for it (also supports not only TDS7k series gear )

[Jwalling]

Maybe dump your dallas chip?
I'm somewhat planing to get a cheap TDS 7154/7254 once one appears cheaply on ebay and then hack it to 32M.

If there's a collection of NVRAM dumps and their options, we can figure out which bit enables which option, so every TDS owner can hack their scope to 16M/32M memory.

While there is a Dallas/Maxim chip on the power PC board, it's surface mount and I wouldn't take the chance of de-soldering it, especially now that I've got everything up and running. I don't think the options are stored there like on the TDS500 through TDS700 series, but I could be wrong... Maybe somebody else knows?

Jay

[acbern]

Just a few comments to this topic. It is obvious from the comments here that the csa8000 and the tds 7104 have different settings in the vxworks boot file. I have verified the 7104 settings as listed in a recent comment above for my 7104, and they do work. I learned this the hard way, as I replaced my sram battery (under power, it was 10+ years old) to avoid a loss of data, but somehow the contacts of the new battery were intermittent (bent contacts), so i lost all data. so watch out for this as you use a new battery.
the settings can be entered with a terminal through serial line, you do not need to enter data that is irrelevant (such as e.g. the ethernet path, it is not used, just hit enter in this case). all data to be entered is listed above a recent comment, no further data needed. my scope now behaves a little different, it does a full hw selftest at startup, compared to a limited one before (more relays clicking and more test data comming through the serial line), I suspect this is because I set "flag" at 0x1008 rather than 0x1000.

[Jwalling]

Poor thing died again. TekScope app shows splash screen, but hangs on it.
Yes, NVRAM battery.

Probably battery was not fresh, as it was only 9 month since I first got CSA7404 and fixed it.
And most of time it was just sitting on shelf turned off.

Hi Tin,

It may interest you to know that a CSA8000 that I repaired for a friend about 8 months ago that had a bad battery (Same as the one in your scope) also died after sitting on a shelf. According to Maxim, these are supposed to be good for 10 years. I'm wondering if there was a batch problem with these chips. The scope is on it's way back to me, I'm going to do some current measurements to see how much the chip draws when the scope is unplugged.

Jay

[acbern]

that sounds like what was happening to me, because initially the scope worked with a new battery, but then died, due to insufficient contact (an interruption when I moved it during re-assembly), the battery pins were bent a little as it seems when I bought them, so I bent them back and it worked. my battery was from 2013 and reads above 3v. so watch out.

on another topic re. the 7104, i have a friend who owns one too, and when he switches on the rear power switch, it does not boot, you need to press the front key in addition. mine powers on once power is applied (rear switch on) , without having to switch it on with the front button. I would like to change this, as I am powering all my equipment off with a central switch, and repowering always switches on the scope.
any ideas? the internal power jumper on the ppc board is not set, so that is not the issue. might have to do with the psu (bios and win98 are not active at that time, so no settimgs there), any ideas?

[Jwalling]

that sounds like what was happening to me, because initially the scope worked with a new battery, but then died, due to insufficient contact (an interruption when I moved it during re-assembly), the battery pins were bent a little as it seems when I bought them, so I bent them back and it worked. my battery was from 2013 and reads above 3v. so watch out.

on another topic re. the 7104, i have a friend who owns one too, and when he switches on the rear power switch, it does not boot, you need to press the front key in addition. mine powers on once power is applied (rear switch on) , without having to switch it on with the front button. I would like to change this, as I am powering all my equipment off with a central switch, and repowering always switches on the scope.
any ideas? the internal power jumper on the ppc board is not set, so that is not the issue. might have to do with the psu (bios and win98 are not active at that time, so no settimgs there), any ideas?

I believe that there's a setting in the BIOS for that. Power on after power fail or last state.
Jay

[acbern]

yes, you are right, somehow I had overlooked that when I checked the BIOS initially, maybe driven by the idea that the BIOS would not be active at time of applying power. anyway, thanks, that helped a lot.

[Jwalling]

Poor thing died again. TekScope app shows splash screen, but hangs on it.
Yes, NVRAM battery.

Probably battery was not fresh, as it was only 9 month since I first got CSA7404 and fixed it.
And most of time it was just sitting on shelf turned off.

Hi Tin,

It may interest you to know that a CSA8000 that I repaired for a friend about 8 months ago that had a bad battery (Same as the one in your scope) also died after sitting on a shelf. According to Maxim, these are supposed to be good for 10 years. I'm wondering if there was a batch problem with these chips. The scope is on it's way back to me, I'm going to do some current measurements to see how much the chip draws when the scope is unplugged.

Jay

Finally got the CSA8000 back. Yup, the battery was dead; I purchased it direct from Digikey, so not likely to be a questionable battery from the start. Using a power supply set to 3VDC running through a current meter when I initially connected the source to the chip it reads in the micro-amp range. When I powered on the scope it still read in the micro-amp range. When I powered off the scope - whether from the rear panel or front power button it draws 1.8mA.
So, looks like a bad chip.
It's marked:

Dallas
Semiconductor
DS1646P-120
POWERCAP
0038GC
121630

Tin, if yours goes dead again, I'd be curious if yours is marked similar...

Jay

[TiN]

Mine CSA7404 is still fine.
Also was browsing ebay the other day, and spotted TDS7104 boards for sale, including PPC board.
It had EDIP32 DS1245Y on it

[ovad]

hi
i used a regular rs232 port
and i got all kind of marks on the rs232 screen
i attached also the vga output
thanks in advance
o.

[4x6uj]

Hi,
Have laid my hands on a tds7104 without hard disk and dead NVRAM battery on PPC board. It has a SU810 m.board with Pentium III 750MHz and 128M RAM . The PPC has also 128M RAM. After installing Win 2K with application v2.5.3 it hangs when starting the application. Diagnostic LED on PPC stays on P. The configutation of the NVRAM looks a bit different compared to the other ones seen in previous posts; it has more parameters?! I configured it the best I could.
There must be an error somewhere but I can't find it. Can someone point it to me? Here is the console dump attached. Thank you for reading.

[TiN]

Do you have correct files in hidden folder c:/vxBoot?

Can you attach topScript.hw to check?

[schersch]

I have looked over your attached dump file.

There is an Exeption in the last few lines "Exception current instruction address:". I had the same problem (TDS7054).

The solution was to enter " other (o): nvfs=0x0000 " in the PPC configuration (stored in the NVRAM).

This was discoused here: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/non-booting-defectivetds7054/

So maybe worth a try 

[4x6uj]

Yes, it partially helps. Now I got a blinking status on the ppc, but application still hangs. Seems the kernel version does not match boot rom version? (whatever that means?) I am attaching both the ppc dump file and the topScript.hw
Hopefully someone can explain and solve this.
Thanks,
Serge

[4x6uj]

Forgot to attach the files, very tired...
Thanks,
Serge

[schersch]

That is very interesting.

My TDS7054 was working fine and after some days its hanging also with a blinking status at almost the same position!

One of the last posts "Kernel version 1.0.8.1  does not match Boot ROM version 1.0.3.0", you can see also in  dump filee of correct working scopes!
So this should not be the problem. The next lines in dump, I think describes the problem, what ever it means.

My TDS7054 starts the TekScope app and the Relays are clicking once, then a failure Message pops up (see attached pic).
I will post my dump later today, I'm still at work 

[TiN]

Windows 98? Why not install 2000 at least

Try this topscript.hw if it's any different.

Also your config little different than mine, as:

<code>
boot device : sm
processor number : 0
host name : host
file name : c:\vxBoot\vxWorks.st
inet on ethernet (e) : 192.168.0.2:ffffff00
inet on backplane (b): 192.168.0.2:ffffff00
host inet (h) : 192.168.0.1
gateway inet (g) : 192.168.0.2
user (u) : anonymous
ftp password (pw) : anonymous
flags (f) : 0×1000
target name (tn) : target
startup script (s) : c:\vxBoot\dio_rst.vsh
other (o) : nvfs=0×1000
</code>

Direction of dashes ("\") vs ("/") may matter as well.
Also check .vsh file.

[4x6uj]

I did install Windows 2000, then XP and have this problem. You also mention in the configutation a dio_vst.rsh file, I don't have it in the vxBoot folder. The v2.5.5 Tek firmware did not install it. Where did it come from?
Serge

[schersch]

Hi everybody,

I worked on my problems with the TDS7054 and I hope that I have found a final solution.

As described I get this DIO.exe "illigal operation" failure, so I decided to install fresh Win2K, cause the Win98 Version was installed in 2001. After installation and get all necessary drivers I started the Tek Scope Software 2.5.5. Everything worked, the scope buttons where on screen, the frontpanel worked correct, but there was no waveforms shown on the screen  .

In the documents of my scope I found an Win2k updateoffer direct from Tektronix. There was written, to update my TDS7054 the mainboard must be changed 

So I conclude:
My Scope has the old BL440ZX PC Mainboard with an Celeron 533 Prozessor on it and with this board it isn't possible to run Win2k and WinXP. If anyone knows a solution to run a newer OS on my scope please describe here!

So deeply disappointed I installed WinME (had no 98 install CD and ME supports USB Sticks) on a newer Harddrive.
After insalling all drivers and the TekScope App at least my Scope work fine whitout the DIO.exe failure. 

@ Serge: Have you managed get your Scope working?

schersch

[TiN]

Did you install correct Cirrus graphics card drivers? TekScope software using some special access to draw viewforms directly on video memory, not transfer data to GUI app to show. Unless you have proper graphics driver, you will not see waveforms.

[schersch]

I installed Drivers for ATI Rage Pro and Chips and Technolgies 6900! These two graphiccontroller should be inside my scope. The Chips and technologies 6900 was a bit hard to find for Win2k, but found one anyway, which worked.

I don't know for shure, but it seems for Win2k there is the need for an SU810 Mainboard 

[TiN]

I was cleaning home lab today and happen to find Intel SU810 board, which I have no use for.
Bought it while ago while was repairing my scope, but did not use.

It have a little corner damage near edge connector, with two pads cut, and I remember that was trying to boot it in my scope, but failed,
so conditions unknown. It's genuine Intel SU810, E139761 so might not be even usable in scope, as my CSA7404 have SF810 board with different layout and NI bridge on it. I can ship it to you for price of shipping (EMS from Taiwan). Also have few CPUs for it, Celeron 850 (128K/100MHz/1.75V), Pentium III 1000 (256K/100MHz/1.75V) coppermines and Pentium III-S 1400 (512K/133MHz/1.45V) Tualatin. I bought two 1400-S CPUs before, and after simple modifications made mine working in scope at 1050MHz with 100MHz FSB clock.

[brad]

Thanks TiN for this thread. I picked up a scope for cheap that the previous owners had clearly tried to repair. It has a new HDD and ram thanks to them. Thanks to your thread, it's back up and running.

Had to put the logic analyzer on the console port 

[brad]

Hey TiN. I used this article to make a TDS 7054 fly back to life. BOY DOES IT FLY! What a beautiful machine.

Thanks for this thread, it will help me pay my tuition this year.

Cheers,
Brad

[gearhd1026]

I had a TDS7104 that wouldn't boot anymore and was failing POST on a .A display which is NVRAM failed memory test.  The battery for the NVRAM was dead but so was the NVRAM chip itself as it wouldn't read what was written to it.  So I replaced the entire Dallas DS1245Y module and PowerCap battery and its come back to life and working perfectly.  While replacing the Dallas chip I also bought a spare PPC board that I've also tested and it works perfectly too.  Now I have two working PPC boards (Tektronix TDS7104 Scope PPC Processor Board PN G9F-2746-00) so I have one available for sale.  If your 7104 needs a new PPC board, let me know.  I'm sure someone needs it and I don't any more.  Its fully tested and works great.