Category Archives: Measurement Equipment

I see dead processor, the first time in my life I've dealt with hundreds if not thousands of PCs since I was a kid

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Ever since I got my hands into assembling and troubleshooting PCs when I was a kid, both through my own experience and general consensus in the computer hobbyist community, CPU is almost the last thing to suspect at fault for a non-functioning computer, much less likely if:

  • There are no signs physical damages (mechanical or heat stress)
  • There were no shorts (burning electronic smells)
  • There weren’t any extreme overclocking (at least Vcore was pumped)
  • The computer used to boot, but has some random hangs

After 20+ years (and troubleshooted a few hundreds if not a couple of thousand PCs), today I encountered (actually zeroed-in that it’s the culprit) the first bad processor in my life. It was inside a M815G motherboard from a 54854A oscilloscope that I bought that wouldn’t boot into windows without random ‘file corrupted’ errors. Then after a few tries, the board wouldn’t even boot, not even any code on the POST card.

At first I suspected it’s an aging motherboard, since I checked the RAM and passes Memtest86+ on another board. It’d be either the motherboard or CPU, which I never considered it might be the CPU given how unlikely it is both by other people and myself.

I couldn’t be bothered to dig at the moment so I simply replaced the entire motherboard (with CPU and RAM installed) with another unit and confirmed that the 54854A I bought didn’t have any deeper problems. Then I put this ‘bad M815G motherboard’ on my back burner.

Today I was trying to revive a VP22 motherboard (which boots only if I apply pressure on certain areas of the PCB) that didn’t have the Fan+Heatsink+CPU+RAM. I happen to have a spare Pentium 3 and some PC-133 (SDRAM) lying around, but not the heatsink+fan, so I borrowed it from the M815G in the repair-if-I-feel-like-it pile.

The VP22 booted with pressure on the PCB (beeped, checked POST card) but I couldn’t see any display, so I thought of swapping-in the known-‘good’ CPU from the ‘faulty’ M815G to see if I had the wrong revision that the VP22 didn’t support. The VP22 used to get stuck in the boot process, but at least the POST card has a reading, this time after swapping in the CPU from the M815G, it has no POST code at all. No pulse.

I got suspicious and took the the CPU from the VP22 and put it in the ‘faulty’ M815G. Guess what? The M815G in question boots and runs fine!!! WTF! For all that time I thought my M815G has a difficult fault just because I had a marginally failing an then dead CPU, which I didn’t even consider the possibility given how unlikely the CPU is at fault.

And no, it’s not the thermal compound drying up, it’s freshly applied every time I move it to a different motherboard. The CPU was only used in M815G/VP22 which does not even have any means of overclocking. No burns or smells or physical damage, and the computer used to boot. The CPU just died of natural causes.

A black swan day!

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Aging problem just from storage Working 6632B stored for 10 years has a failed tantalum cap

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I fired up one of my 6632B stored for almost 10 years and smelled burned electronics, despite everything is functioning. I tested the unit immediately when I bought them a decade ago and it was working fine, so it’s an example where electronics can deteriorate by storing (even in temperature controlled, dry environment).

Since I see smoke, I turned everything off immediately and investigated. Turns out one of the tantalum capacitors in the processor/controller board gave in:

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Wobbling rotary encoder in Agilent/HP/Keysight 6630B series 6631B, 6632B, 6633B, 6634B, 6634A, 6635A, 66332A*

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6630 series system power supply is sturdy as a rock, but has a rotary encoder sticking out that it’s almost guaranteed to wobble if you buy it used.

I thought they would have known better to secure the rotary encoder with a nut so it won’t wobble (HP usually does a perfect job making their designs reliable. This one is a rare miss), so I opened it up to see what I can do about it.

My initial guess was that the solder joints were weakened as it was used to mechanically support external forces for users of the dial. But I was wrong. Here’s what I’ve found:

The weak metal strip retainers gave in and the whole rotary encoder is about to break loose! The encoder was actually still functioning before I opened the case up. So HP assumed their vendor for the mechanical rotary encoder did a good job withstanding frequent wiggling. Apparently their vendor completely failed them: the metal retainer design was hopelessly flimsy that I wouldn’t even consider using it even in light-usage applications! FAIL!

There’s a huge number of these high quality power supplies on the market because Motorola/Nokia closed down their massive operations, flooding the market with 6632Bs for years to come.

I’ll now strengthen (I came up with a solid technique to make sure the dial will never fall apart again) the 6632Bs I have for sale to businesses that needs a perfect unit (which I sell for $699/ea). If you are a hobbyist, feel free to send me a message and I’ll tell you how to do it, provided that you do not share it with anybody else (I’ll trust you). If you are a business, I can restore 6630B series to a professionally salable state starting at $499.

* Note that I included 66332A despite it’s a mobile communication DC source (66300 series) here because the guts of it is actually 6630 series. Every other 66300 series (3 Amps max) or less has a different form factor (that’s more like a 33120A) and the only odd one out of the series is 6632A (5 Amps max).

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Option 005 “Vertical Output” port of 54600 series oscilloscopes (54616B, 54616C, etc) A secret backdoor feature that new oscilloscopes lack

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Over the last year, I got a couple of requests for 54616B that specifically ask for a “vertical output” port at the back. I have never seen an oscilloscope that came with such a port, including a few hundred of first generation first generation 54600s I acquired from many different sources.

I got curious and looked it up. Turns out it’s a secondary feature of a relatively obscure option (only mentioned in the manuals, but I have never seen one) called Option 005, which lets you analyze (like count lines) and trigger over common TV signals, like PAL/NTSC/SECAM, which is way obsolete today. It also seems that none of the customers asking specifically for the “vertical output” port at the back know that it is a super rare option that is normally not included, so they must be using it for something else other than analog TV signal analysis.

A closer look at the user guide shows that “vertical output” port duplicates the signal source (e.g. channel 1) that the scope is triggering on, limited to what is seen by the oscilloscope, to the said “vertical output” port, a secondary feature to let you chain your signal to instruments like spectrum analyzers for further analysis.

I tried the feature myself by chaining the output to another oscilloscope. Even if the waveform is off-screen for the current vertical volts/div, the vertical output port waveform did not clip. I also played around with input impedance settings 1MΩ and 50Ω for a 50Mhz square wave. Based on what gets the square wave badly distorted, I can confirm that the vertical output signal is the analog signal after attenuator (the amplitude changes only with Volts/div that causes relay clicks) but before ADC, assuming a 50Ω load.

Wait! An oscilloscope that duplicates the input analog signals after being processed by the front end (post-attenuator, pre-ADC) to an external output port?! I don’t have to mess with the original signal path by splitting the signal (passively) or make an amplifier to duplicate the signal? Wow! How come it’s not standard (or at least a purchasable option) in modern oscilloscopes? I’d like to see what’s going on with the analog waveform before the scope processes it! Not only it’s very educational, it allows other instruments to get an accurate insight of what the oscilloscope is seeing. Neat!

Installing the Option 005 is not difficult if you happen to have an unobtainium Option 005 case with labels, and the entire kit with all the necessary interconnect. However, it’s like an unicorn and I’ve never seen one. Drilling professional looking holes for it is a nightmare as we don’t have the dimensions. The hardware is also insanely hard to get as it was made for a specialized crowd for the time and practically nobody cared about analog TV signals nowadays. Even if I can get that, they are most often missing the interconnects. The ribbon cable is missing for nearly all of them, and if you get a standard ribbon cable, you’ll realize the plastic retainer gets into the way of a screw on the main acquisition board so the Option 005 card won’t slide in unless you trim some of the plastic off. PITA!

Nowadays I am already spoiled by high end gears like MSO6054A and 13Ghz Infiniiums (like DSO81304A), but none of them has a convenient analog, post-attenuator output like a first generation 54600 with an Option 005. Given the hardware is scarce, I’ll save it for the top of the line first generation 54600 series, namely 54616B and 54616C.

For those who have this special need (need to tap into the pre-ADC signals up to 500Mhz), I can custom build these Option 005 units for you, depending on parts availability. Call me at 949-682-8145 or reach me at my business website www.humgar.com.

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Oscilloscope Probing – Bob Pease Show

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Once in a while customers ask me about what probes do they need to go with their high bandwidth oscilloscopes.

Agilent already has application notes about how to probe properly at high frequencies to ensure what you see on the scope represents the reality faithfully, but they are a little dry. Bob Pease Show at National Semiconductor (now acquired by Texas Instruments) talked about it and it’s great infotainment due to Bob Pease’s character:

This show has significant product placement by Tektronix, but the information there applies equally (and fungibly) to all major name brands such as Agilent/HP/Keysight and Lecroy. They all live up to the specs advertised.

What I’ve learned from the video

  • No-name brand probes might not live up to the claimed specs. I wouldn’t trust a Chinese probe beyond 100Mhz (or even 60Mhz).
  • Shorten the ground leads as much as possible, especially high frequencies. Wires are inductors/antennas.
  • Do not use the poor-man’s differential probes (aka subtracting the channels on the scopes): the channels aren’t matched perfectly, the probes aren’t matched perfectly either.
  • Design for testing: plan your PCB so you can probe easily.
  • For digital designs, high bandwidth scope users care more about (time-domain) step response: rise-time, ringing, settling, than it’s frequency domain (I don’t have a fast pulse generator, this is why I test it with a RF generator to check the specs)
  • Active probes have less loading and attenuation. You can use passive probes if you have a large enough signal to burn.
  • Probe capacitance (loading) kills a fast circuit (by damping it down)
  • Don’t be happy because you see nice waveforms and nothing bad happens with a low bandwidth scope+probe: you are just failing the capture transients.

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