My
BSOD1 struck again this week. After doing my best to ignore a CL advertisement for a TDS540 that "mostly worked", hoping some other fool would buy it and save me from myself, I drove north and picked it up yesterday.
![](http://u.cubeupload.com/worsthorse/IMG1177.jpg)
It is mechanically sound and while it fails a number of diagnostic tests, I am able to get a signal on channels 2, 3 and 4:
![](http://u.cubeupload.com/worsthorse/IMG1188.jpg)
When I tested it before buying, it failed the ATTN/ACQ board startup test. After running it for about thirty minutes and running the extended tests, I saw this:
![](http://u.cubeupload.com/worsthorse/IMG1179.jpg)
The error log shows about two dozen errors, which boil down to the acquisition and processor boards. These scopes are famous for SMD tant failures on those two boards. After reading a bunch of TDS540 repair threads, I figured it was a
reasonable acceptable wager that replacing the tants and cleaning the boards will, as it has in other instances, return the scope to a usable state.
My plan is to open it up, see if the tants look like I think they look, and if they do, come up with a plan for removing/replacing them. If they don't or I find other damage, I am not sure what I will do; probably sell it to someone who knows more about fixing them than I do.
________
1Bright Shiny Object Disorder, a sub-syndrome of
TEAS.