Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread

[Vince]

EDIT : look what I just found !!!

No need to bother taking apart my two spare IBM computers to try their CD drives !

I have a junk box full of old IDE FDD/HDD/CD... 7 CD drives look !! 

Cool.... I am covered 

Is there a computer museum in Paris? Might want to contact them from what I'm seeing ...

I don't know, Paris is 440kms away from me, I have no business going there.... they are all jerks up there anyway, I carefully avoid going anywhere near Paris. A safety radius of at least 150kms if not more, is advised.

Nope, I am keeping my old stuff ! 

See, it's helping me here ! 

[pcprogrammer]

Cerebus it's not the same, you are in the UK so I need to import... McBryce is in Germany so it's the EU zone, no importing shit going on, just regular mail service...

That said when Robert sent me stuff on several occasions from England, the parcel got delivered in my mail box directly, never was asked to pay anything.... I think they just don't bother (ofr now at least) with random small low value stuff between private individuals....

Didn't have to pay anything either when I bought the new LED strips for that TV repair, from china / Aliexpress...

I don't think they will charge anything when it is a private "gift". And stuff from Aliexpress is now inclusive since it joined the required organization for handling the VAT.

I have to say that delivery has improved since this new setup, even when it is not expedited shipping it still comes within a couple of weeks, where before it could take months. So that is the upside of paying a bit extra.

[Vince]

The real irony is... I have a few of those CF adapters here that I could send you. You could have them for free, but the postage for normal people ("the great unwashed") within the EU costs more than the price of the article including shipping from China. 

McBryce.

Well... it might still be interesting. Shipping from Germany is about 5 Euros, similar price so I don't mind, plus, getting it from you means I am 100% sure I won't be asked to pay any taxes or brokerage fee or anything, and also I would receive it in a few days rather than 2/3 weeks...
So please double check shipping cost but I am pretty sure that's what it is... then PM me for the details ! 

I have to find them first. How many do you need?

McBryce.

Well just one ! 

[McBryce]

The real irony is... I have a few of those CF adapters here that I could send you. You could have them for free, but the postage for normal people ("the great unwashed") within the EU costs more than the price of the article including shipping from China. 

McBryce.

Well... it might still be interesting. Shipping from Germany is about 5 Euros, similar price so I don't mind, plus, getting it from you means I am 100% sure I won't be asked to pay any taxes or brokerage fee or anything, and also I would receive it in a few days rather than 2/3 weeks...
So please double check shipping cost but I am pretty sure that's what it is... then PM me for the details ! 

I have to find them first. How many do you need?

McBryce.

Well just one ! 

See edited post above...

McBryce.

[Vince]

EDIT : look what I just found !!!

No need to bother taking apart my two spare IBM computers to try their CD drives !

I have a junk box full of old IDE FDD/HDD/CD... 7 CD drives look !! 

Cool.... I am covered 

Now, the CD/CF problems are sorted out, until you've get the CF adapter, go back to the Rochar Nixie DVM.

Hmmm...sorry but it looks like this CD booting problem is more difficult to solve than this I am afraid ! 

Spent a couple hours on it now.... it's a mystery, I just don't understand what's going on...

1) First, I tried the OEM "rescue" CD supplied with the computer, seeing as this one at least I was sure was supposed to boot from this computer... and guess what, it DOES boot fine !! 
So why doesn't my old WinXP Cd boot then ?

2) My CD has gone bad ? Nope, tried it on my main PC, boots just fine.

3) So maybe because it's a CDR, the OEM CD drive is too old to work with a CD-R ?..... nope, if I boot Win95, my WinXP CD is detected just fine and the file explorer cannavigate that disc just fine, it's 100% responsive, the drive has zero trouble reading this 20 year old CDR.... and didn't have any trouble reading the CDR I Made when I installed W2K the other day.

4) So, I tried a couple of my salvaged CD drives, which are a tad younger, some can even red DVD's. Well.... same problem : they boot the old resuce CD just fine, but won't boot my WinXP CD !!! 

So.... how weird is that !!! 

I am stuck now... it's not a drive problem it looks like !

So looks like a BIOS issue then ? It's only able to boot from very old boot CD's..... can't boot an XP CD from 2002. The norm/Standard that defines how Bootable CD's work... must have evolved. Or maybe old BIOSes implemented the standard only partially, or incorrectly, and it was good enough to work with the CD's of the day, but not newer ones. I don't know, but that's really very odd !

I am stuck now ! 

EDIT : ALSO, I tried the W2K CD on my main computer, and it won't boot either ! No wonder it didn't boot on the old machine !
Thinking of it, I don't recall the website I downloaded it from, ever said it was bootable.... I think it just said "Install" CD and it must have been me wrongly extrapolating this to mean "bootable".. my fault I guess.
So I searched for a bootable ISO this time, and found this site that clearly states their ISO is bootable :

https://archive.org/details/enwin2000prosp4_202001

So I burned that onto a CDRW, my last one, because it looks like I have run out of CDR. Well... that disc (on my main computer) fails to boot as well ! 

I am cursed I told you !!! 

So looks like I may take Robert on his W2K CD offer..... Robert if you could rip the ISO from your disc and upload it somewhere ? 

I will get a new stack of fresh CDRs (works better than CDRW IIRC, on old computers). I hope my local supermarket still sells these old things....   

[Vince]

The real irony is... I have a few of those CF adapters here that I could send you. You could have them for free, but the postage for normal people ("the great unwashed") within the EU costs more than the price of the article including shipping from China. 

McBryce.

Well... it might still be interesting. Shipping from Germany is about 5 Euros, similar price so I don't mind, plus, getting it from you means I am 100% sure I won't be asked to pay any taxes or brokerage fee or anything, and also I would receive it in a few days rather than 2/3 weeks...
So please double check shipping cost but I am pretty sure that's what it is... then PM me for the details ! 

I have to find them first. How many do you need?

McBryce.

Well just one ! 

See edited post above...

McBryce.

Looks good to me ! 

Hell there is even a " QC passed " sticker, we are saved ! 

[Zenith]

Cerebus it's not the same, you are in the UK so I need to import... McBryce is in Germany so it's the EU zone, no importing shit going on, just regular mail service...

That said when Robert sent me stuff on several occasions from England, the parcel got delivered in my mail box directly, never was asked to pay anything.... I think they just don't bother (ofr now at least) with random small low value stuff between private individuals....

Didn't have to pay anything either when I bought the new LED strips for that TV repair, from china / Aliexpress...

I sent a Christmas pudding to a friend in France and he had to pay 1 Euro VAT, (it was a £5 Christmas pudding) but La Poste charged him a 9 Euro collection fee.

I sent him a circuit board as a large letter. I didn't fill in a customs form, I put it in a post box. It went as a large letter  - which is only supposed to contain letters, documents etc. It appeared in his mail box with no questions asked. It was maybe worth £3 in parts anyway.

As for stuff imported into the UK, I've always found customs to be a bit of a lottery. Sometimes they hit you, sometimes they don't

[bd139]

EDIT : look what I just found !!!

No need to bother taking apart my two spare IBM computers to try their CD drives !

I have a junk box full of old IDE FDD/HDD/CD... 7 CD drives look !! 

Cool.... I am covered 

Now, the CD/CF problems are sorted out, until you've get the CF adapter, go back to the Rochar Nixie DVM.

Hmmm...sorry but it looks like this CD booting problem is more difficult to solve than this I am afraid ! 

Spent a couple hours on it now.... it's a mystery, I just don't understand what's going on...

1) First, I tried the OEM "rescue" CD supplied with the computer, seeing as this one at least I was sure was supposed to boot from this computer... and guess what, it DOES boot fine !! 
So why doesn't my old WinXP Cd boot then ?

2) My CD has gone bad ? Nope, tried it on my main PC, boots just fine.

3) So maybe because it's a CDR, the OEM CD drive is too old to work with a CD-R ?..... nope, if I boot Win95, my WinXP CD is detected just fine and the file explorer cannavigate that disc just fine, it's 100% responsive, the drive has zero trouble reading this 20 year old CDR.... and didn't have any trouble reading the CDR I Made when I installed W2K the other day.

4) So, I tried a couple of my salvaged CD drives, which are a tad younger, some can even red DVD's. Well.... same problem : they boot the old resuce CD just fine, but won't boot my WinXP CD !!! 

So.... how weird is that !!! 

I am stuck now... it's not a drive problem it looks like !

So looks like a BIOS issue then ? It's only able to boot from very old boot CD's..... can't boot an XP CD from 2002. The norm/Standard that defines how Bootable CD's work... must have evolved. Or maybe old BIOSes implemented the standard only partially, or incorrectly, and it was good enough to work with the CD's of the day, but not newer ones. I don't know, but that's really very odd !

I am stuck now ! 

EDIT : ALSO, I tried the W2K CD on my main computer, and it won't boot either ! No wonder it didn't boot on the old machine !
Thinking of it, I don't recall the website I downloaded it from, ever said it was bootable.... I think it just said "Install" CD and it must have been me wrongly extrapolating this to mean "bootable".. my fault I guess.
So I searched for a bootable ISO this time, and found this site that clearly states their ISO is bootable :

https://archive.org/details/enwin2000prosp4_202001

So I burned that onto a CDRW, my last one, because it looks like I have run out of CDR. Well... that disc (on my main computer) fails to boot as well ! 

I am cursed I told you !!! 

So looks like I may take Robert on his W2K CD offer..... Robert if you could rip the ISO from your disc and upload it somewhere ? 

I will get a new stack of fresh CDRs (works better than CDRW IIRC, on old computers). I hope my local supermarket still sells these old things....   

I actually have no CD drives or CDs in my house or intel PCs.

I am reminded now as to why I got rid of the infernal things 

[Cerebus]

Cerebus it's not the same, you are in the UK so I need to import... McBryce is in Germany so it's the EU zone, no importing shit going on, just regular mail service...

That said when Robert sent me stuff on several occasions from England, the parcel got delivered in my mail box directly, never was asked to pay anything.... I think they just don't bother (ofr now at least) with random small low value stuff between private individuals....

Didn't have to pay anything either when I bought the new LED strips for that TV repair, from china / Aliexpress...

When last I checked the EU operates the same as here, a personal gift below a certain value (£39 for inbound to the UK) doesn't attract any duty or VAT unless they are "excise goods" e.g. booze, tobacco.

[bd139]

Nope. Mansaxel got buggered for a £0.20 value gift item UK to Sweden from me.

It's inconsistent, unreliable and dependent on a combination of law, logic and how malicious sentiment at the customs agencies.

Same when I had to pay import on some fucking gifted Biberfladen which I could have got down the road for less than the RM extortion fee.

This is why I'm reluctant to import or export stuff unless it's costed at worst case.

[factory]

Well the slightly younger HP 34401A that arrived last week seems to function OK (quick check on Sunday evening), quite a noticeable difference in display brightness too.

<SNIP>

The older one I was having trouble with when testing the 745A AC calibrator, seems to have died completely on all AC functions & frequency measurement, it was OK when I acquired it, another DMM for the lengthy repair queue. 

<SNIP>

David

I fixed my 34401A that had the exact same problem. See my post:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/test-equipment-anonymous-(tea)-group-therapy-thread/msg4267654/#msg4267654

Message me when you go to fix it and, if it helps you, I'll mail you the parts I used to fix it. I ordered spares since they were tiny and cheap.

EDIT:

Added picture of schematic (highlights are mine)

C312 is a "Capacitor-Fxd 22 uF ±20% 20 V"
CR304 is a "Diode-Zener 3.3V 5% TO-236"

I'm wondering if I should do a preemptive replacement on mine. I actually have the tants already.

It was even a featured failure on EDN 

https://www.edn.com/repair-hp-34401a-capacitor-failure/

And xdevs:

https://xdevs.com/fix/hp34401a/

Edit: now I'm looking at hot air stations. Seeeee what we do to each other 

The EDN & Xdev 34401As, had various other tants in the DMM die.

The faulty 34401A won't be used again till I get a chance to repair it, could the infrequent use have helped the tants fail? the voltage rating seems a little on the low side (20V on 15V supply), duckduck did you upgrade them to 35V?
Do I need to buy some more soldering kit? not sure two Pace irons in chopstick mode is the best idea  (have used on scrap boards in the past), can't use the Ersa tweezers at work as they grew legs & walked out. 

David

Kapton over all the bits you don’t want to fix, flux and hot air is the easiest way to get them off.

Had a quick look inside, mine has failed on the -15A supply, C323 is now a 3.3kΩ resistor & CR307 is now a 85Ω resistor, C323 is right by the display & power connectors. Must be lucky as I can't see any board damage. 


Some extra pictures with the shield removed, as I didn't remove them last time I had a peek inside.
It needs a good clean around the rear of the board, case is marked July 1992 on the inside, think I should replace the electrolytics at some point too, don't trust 30 year old caps not to piss themselves from the negative lead. 




David

[Vince]

I actually have no CD drives or CDs in my house or intel PCs.

I am reminded now as to why I got rid of the infernal things 

Not very helpful here ! 

[Vince]

Cerebus it's not the same, you are in the UK so I need to import... McBryce is in Germany so it's the EU zone, no importing shit going on, just regular mail service...

That said when Robert sent me stuff on several occasions from England, the parcel got delivered in my mail box directly, never was asked to pay anything.... I think they just don't bother (ofr now at least) with random small low value stuff between private individuals....

Didn't have to pay anything either when I bought the new LED strips for that TV repair, from china / Aliexpress...

I sent a Christmas pudding to a friend in France and he had to pay 1 Euro VAT, (it was a £5 Christmas pudding) but La Poste charged him a 9 Euro collection fee.

I sent him a circuit board as a large letter. I didn't fill in a customs form, I put it in a post box. It went as a large letter  - which is only supposed to contain letters, documents etc. It appeared in his mail box with no questions asked. It was maybe worth £3 in parts anyway.

As for stuff imported into the UK, I've always found customs to be a bit of a lottery. Sometimes they hit you, sometimes they don't

I hope at least the pudding was worth his expense !! 

[bd139]

Had a quick look inside, mine has failed on the -15A supply, C323 is now a 3.3kΩ resistor & CR307 is now a 85Ω resistor, C323 is right by the display & power connectors. Must be lucky as I can't see any board damage. 


Some extra pictures with the shield removed, as I didn't remove them last time I had a peek inside.
It needs a good clean around the rear of the board, case is marked July 1992 on the inside, think I should replace the electrolytics at some point too, don't trust 30 year old caps not to piss themselves from the negative lead. 




David

That's a kind of decent failure mode that. I'm impressed. To be honest I'm not sure how the tants usually blow up like that. I spent a good few hours trying to blow up SMD tants a few years back and none of them would do anything other than fall off the board after melting their own solder.

Fingers crossed on a repair.

[Zenith]

Cerebus it's not the same, you are in the UK so I need to import... McBryce is in Germany so it's the EU zone, no importing shit going on, just regular mail service...

That said when Robert sent me stuff on several occasions from England, the parcel got delivered in my mail box directly, never was asked to pay anything.... I think they just don't bother (ofr now at least) with random small low value stuff between private individuals....

Didn't have to pay anything either when I bought the new LED strips for that TV repair, from china / Aliexpress...

I sent a Christmas pudding to a friend in France and he had to pay 1 Euro VAT, (it was a £5 Christmas pudding) but La Poste charged him a 9 Euro collection fee.

I sent him a circuit board as a large letter. I didn't fill in a customs form, I put it in a post box. It went as a large letter  - which is only supposed to contain letters, documents etc. It appeared in his mail box with no questions asked. It was maybe worth £3 in parts anyway.

As for stuff imported into the UK, I've always found customs to be a bit of a lottery. Sometimes they hit you, sometimes they don't

I hope at least the pudding was worth his expense !! 

The additional charges left a nasty taste in the mouth!

His girlfriend was delighted with the Christmas pudding and sent me a parcel containing four French Christmas goodies. A fruit loaf and jam etc. It just arrived and there was no VAT or collection charge.

Something of a lottery, and hardly anyone is going to enter into an argument with customs or the Post Office, over a bit of VAT and a collection fee they don't believe was just.

I am going over in September and have secured two Christmas puddings which I will take. I hope they won't be seized by the customs as contraband.

[Cerebus]

Nope. Mansaxel got buggered for a £0.20 value gift item UK to Sweden from me.

Yup, but that just means that Postnord, like the bloody royal mail, breaks the rules in the hope of stealing their processing fee off the recipient.

Gifts, <500 SEK, from outside the EU to Sweden attract no VAT or duty.

https://tullverket.se/receivingagiftfromacountryoutsidetheeu.4.311bf4f016e69d6ea0da91.html

[bd139]

Nope. Mansaxel got buggered for a £0.20 value gift item UK to Sweden from me.

Yup, but that just means that Postnord, like the bloody royal mail, breaks the rules in the hope of stealing their processing fee off the recipient.

Gifts, <500 SEK, from outside the EU to Sweden attract no VAT or duty.

https://tullverket.se/receivingagiftfromacountryoutsidetheeu.4.311bf4f016e69d6ea0da91.html

Yes I alluded to that in the other statement in that post

It's inconsistent, unreliable and dependent on a combination of law, logic and how malicious sentiment at the customs agencies.

Anyway everything is packed away here awaiting house move and my Tinder sub has expired so I'm going to do the only things I can do: drink vodka, watch Stranger Things and lurk on eBay 

[Saskia]

Cerebus it's not the same, you are in the UK so I need to import... McBryce is in Germany so it's the EU zone, no importing shit going on, just regular mail service...

That said when Robert sent me stuff on several occasions from England, the parcel got delivered in my mail box directly, never was asked to pay anything.... I think they just don't bother (ofr now at least) with random small low value stuff between private individuals....

Didn't have to pay anything either when I bought the new LED strips for that TV repair, from china / Aliexpress...

I sent a Christmas pudding to a friend in France and he had to pay 1 Euro VAT, (it was a £5 Christmas pudding) but La Poste charged him a 9 Euro collection fee.

I sent him a circuit board as a large letter. I didn't fill in a customs form, I put it in a post box. It went as a large letter  - which is only supposed to contain letters, documents etc. It appeared in his mail box with no questions asked. It was maybe worth £3 in parts anyway.

As for stuff imported into the UK, I've always found customs to be a bit of a lottery. Sometimes they hit you, sometimes they don't

I hope at least the pudding was worth his expense !! 

you can',t have any pudding If you are going to get me

[Zoli]

...
Hmmm...sorry but it looks like this CD booting problem is more difficult to solve than this I am afraid ! 

Spent a couple hours on it now.... it's a mystery, I just don't understand what's going on...

1) First, I tried the OEM "rescue" CD supplied with the computer, seeing as this one at least I was sure was supposed to boot from this computer... and guess what, it DOES boot fine !! 
So why doesn't my old WinXP Cd boot then ?

2) My CD has gone bad ? Nope, tried it on my main PC, boots just fine.

3) So maybe because it's a CDR, the OEM CD drive is too old to work with a CD-R ?..... nope, if I boot Win95, my WinXP CD is detected just fine and the file explorer cannavigate that disc just fine, it's 100% responsive, the drive has zero trouble reading this 20 year old CDR.... and didn't have any trouble reading the CDR I Made when I installed W2K the other day.

4) So, I tried a couple of my salvaged CD drives, which are a tad younger, some can even red DVD's. Well.... same problem : they boot the old resuce CD just fine, but won't boot my WinXP CD !!! 

So.... how weird is that !!! 

I am stuck now... it's not a drive problem it looks like !

So looks like a BIOS issue then ? It's only able to boot from very old boot CD's..... can't boot an XP CD from 2002. The norm/Standard that defines how Bootable CD's work... must have evolved. Or maybe old BIOSes implemented the standard only partially, or incorrectly, and it was good enough to work with the CD's of the day, but not newer ones. I don't know, but that's really very odd !

I am stuck now ! 

EDIT : ALSO, I tried the W2K CD on my main computer, and it won't boot either ! No wonder it didn't boot on the old machine !
Thinking of it, I don't recall the website I downloaded it from, ever said it was bootable.... I think it just said "Install" CD and it must have been me wrongly extrapolating this to mean "bootable".. my fault I guess.
So I searched for a bootable ISO this time, and found this site that clearly states their ISO is bootable :

https://archive.org/details/enwin2000prosp4_202001

So I burned that onto a CDRW, my last one, because it looks like I have run out of CDR. Well... that disc (on my main computer) fails to boot as well ! 

I am cursed I told you !!! 

So looks like I may take Robert on his W2K CD offer..... Robert if you could rip the ISO from your disc and upload it somewhere ? 

I will get a new stack of fresh CDRs (works better than CDRW IIRC, on old computers). I hope my local supermarket still sells these old things....   

The CD's had to be made bootable; look up how to made them bootable under Linux. And it would had been a smart move to accept Robert's win2000CD 

[Vince]

The CD's had to be made bootable; look up how to made them bootable under Linux. And it would had been a smart move to accept Robert's win2000CD 

I don't understand... as I said my WinXP CD DOES boot on my main PC, just not on the old PC.

So the CD itself is good... or am I missing something ? Probably...

As for Robert's offer, well I don't think it's too late to accept it, I doubt he sold it on Ebay since then...

Regardless, I need to get a new stock of CDR and CDRW...


EDIT : I thought the ISO file itself contained whatever was necessary to make the CD bootable ?

I mean I have never done anything special to get a CD to boot. Every time I get a Linux install CD, bootable of course, I just burn the ISO straight to a CD, I don't do anything special... and it boots just fine 

[mnementh]

Cerebus it's not the same, you are in the UK so I need to import... McBryce is in Germany so it's the EU zone, no importing shit going on, just regular mail service...

That said when Robert sent me stuff on several occasions from England, the parcel got delivered in my mail box directly, never was asked to pay anything.... I think they just don't bother (ofr now at least) with random small low value stuff between private individuals....

Didn't have to pay anything either when I bought the new LED strips for that TV repair, from china / Aliexpress...

I sent a Christmas pudding to a friend in France and he had to pay 1 Euro VAT, (it was a £5 Christmas pudding) but La Poste charged him a 9 Euro collection fee.

I sent him a circuit board as a large letter. I didn't fill in a customs form, I put it in a post box. It went as a large letter  - which is only supposed to contain letters, documents etc. It appeared in his mail box with no questions asked. It was maybe worth £3 in parts anyway.

As for stuff imported into the UK, I've always found customs to be a bit of a lottery. Sometimes they hit you, sometimes they don't

I hope at least the pudding was worth his expense !! 

you can't have any pudding If you are going to get me don't eat your meat...

FTFY. 

mnem
"...how can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat...?
You! Yes, you behind the bikesheds! Stand still laddy!"

[Specmaster]

Question, anyone here familiar with CCTV system? My son has brought me 2 HDCCTV DVR's that are only displaying the colour bars and the following message USB Disk Scanning written across the colour bars. One is as described and after a few minutes the monitor screen goes blank, the other stays on. Both have 1TB spinning rust drives.I cannot access the menus or do anything with controls.

These are the security systems for his place of work so needs them working ASAP?

[Specmaster]

@Saskia I have sent you a very urgent PM, please check it.

[Zoli]

The CD's had to be made bootable; look up how to made them bootable under Linux. And it would had been a smart move to accept Robert's win2000CD 

I don't understand... as I said my WinXP CD DOES boot on my main PC, just not on the old PC.

So the CD itself is good... or am I missing something ? Probably...

As for Robert's offer, well I don't think it's too late to accept it, I doubt he sold it on Ebay since then...

Regardless, I need to get a new stock of CDR and CDRW...

Look for CF card too; maybe you've got a nice bargain. If you switch to win2000 workstation(final/sp4) from server, 2G is more then enough(IIRC, win2000 WS is around 650MB installed).

[Zoli]

Question, anyone here familiar with CCTV system? My son has brought me 2 HDCCTV DVR's that are only displaying the colour bars and the following message USB Disk Scanning written across the colour bars. One is as described and after a few minutes the monitor screen goes blank, the other stays on. Both have 1TB spinning rust drives.I cannot access the menus or do anything with controls.

These are the security systems for his place of work so needs them working ASAP?

Take out the hard drives, and check the health. HDD'sSpinning rusters are Murphy corporals.