O'scopes - Tek vs HP/Agilent vs LeCroy

[Mike Monett]

Is xnews causing that right justification and indentation? If you
can, please inhibit it. It makes further reformatting very
awkward.

What kind of reformatting are you trying to do? Can you give an
example?

My software indents two spaces to get text off the left margin to
make it easier to read. It right justifies in column 70 to prevent
line wrap in most readers. This works well for the first reply to a
post.

Each news client handles quoted replies differently. Some are better
than others, but quoted text will eventually get garbled after
several passes. There is little I can do to prevent this.

Some clients have an option to reformat badly-wrapped text. XNews
will handle moderately-garbled replies, but it fails on very poor
examples. I have to rely on my own software to fix the problem,
especially when several prior posts are included.

I notice that your reply has extra spaces between the ">"
delimiters, which adds to the line wrap problem. My software removes
these extra spaces to help minimize the problem.

Unfortunately, we have little control over the formatting on news
posts. Perhaps the best solution is to find an editor that
understands bad formatting and can fix it.

Regards,

Mike Monett

Antiviral, Antibacterial Silver Solution:
http://silversol.freewebpage.org/index.htm
SPICE Analysis of Crystal Oscillators:
http://silversol.freewebpage.org/spice/xtal/clapp.htm
Noise-Rejecting Wideband Sampler:
http://www3.sympatico.ca/add.automation/sampler/intro.htm

 

[Everett M. Greene]

Don't forget about bad hardware. How much of the price of the
oscilloscope goes into the PC hardware? I suppose not much.
Windows by itself is rock solid if you run it on the proper
hardware + drivers and don't connect it to the internet.

That sounds as if everything's fine as long as you don't
try to use it for anything. If you leave you car in the
garage, you won't have failures on the road.

 

[Joel Kolstad]

I have had the same experience with my own computers. Windows would
crash regularly, but I would have Eagle running on Linux for 6
months continuously, and it never even hiccuped.

Obviously, when you are only used to using Windows, that's the level
you accept.

Actually, not everyone has problems with Windows crashing... I might see
Windows die a couple times per *year* these days? It's pretty uncommon... I
have a Windows SBS 2003 machine that serves primarily as a file server and
Exchange server, and the only time it *ever* gets rebooted is after Windows
updates installs security patches; it's been up for 2 years straight
otherwise.

I grant you that many people's machines do seem to crash routinely, but I've
yet to see a case where it wasn't due to having all sort of
Internet-downloaded/co-worker shared crapware installed on them.

That being said, Linux is certainly pretty stable these days to; I certainly
haven't seen it crash lately either.

---Joel

 

[Joel Kolstad]

You are balancing a hardrive on top of an open case? Fine for testing
purposes, but not a long term solution.

I can personally vouch for destroying a hard drive's controller by doing that
once... it slid a little, the metal case shorted some of the pins on the ICs
on the controller PCB, and -- poof! -- one newly minted brick.

Luckily, swapping controllers brought it back to life; no data was lost.

 

[Joel Kolstad]

Microsoft has only itself to blame for much of that. It has
encouraged the 'cheap' machine without ECC protection (saving maybe
$25 per machine). Note that even the original PC had parity
protection for memory errors.

What makes you think it was necessarily the memory that was bad?

I don't think ECC is going to help a machine that's so broken that it blue
screens within 5 minutes (it'll most likely hit a non-recoverable error within
15 and roll over ayway), other than to indicate that's where the problem lies
rather than in some other piece of hardware.

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

Actually, not everyone has problems with Windows crashing... I might see
Windows die a couple times per *year* these days? It's pretty uncommon... I
have a Windows SBS 2003 machine that serves primarily as a file server and
Exchange server, and the only time it *ever* gets rebooted is after Windows
updates installs security patches; it's been up for 2 years straight
otherwise.

I grant you that many people's machines do seem to crash routinely, but I've
yet to see a case where it wasn't due to having all sort of
Internet-downloaded/co-worker shared crapware installed on them.

That being said, Linux is certainly pretty stable these days to; I certainly
haven't seen it crash lately either.

---Joel

A lot of machines with frequent crashes have failing electrolytics on
the motherboard's CPU SMPS. They run fine, but crash when hit with a
heavy load. $10 of new low ESR caps make a lot of computers rock solid
again. A computer full of spyware running in the background adds to the
CPUs workload, and can cause an already failing system to crash.
--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

 

[CBFalconer]

What makes you think it was necessarily the memory that was bad?

Nothing. It is just one of many possible causes.

I don't think ECC is going to help a machine that's so broken
that it blue screens within 5 minutes (it'll most likely hit a
non-recoverable error within 15 and roll over ayway), other than to
indicate that's where the problem lies rather than in some other
piece of hardware.

An uncaught memory error can corrupt the object code you are
running, resulting in just that symptom. Once the object code has
been fouled by the memory error (for example during a disk packing
operation) it remains fouled until reloaded from the original
media. The only insurance available is to always have ECC memory,
which reduces the error chances to a negligible level. Remember
that such errors can be due to cosmic rays, and be non-repeatable.

 

[CBFalconer]

What kind of reformatting are you trying to do? Can you give an
example?

Look at almost any of my articles in c.a.e and c.l.c. I refrained
above and before to illustrate the sort of problems your formatting
caused. KISS applies. Reformatting blindly is especially deadly
to code examples.

 

[Mike Monett]

I can personally vouch for destroying a hard drive's controller by
doing that once. It slid a little, the metal case shorted some of
the pins on the ICs on the controller PCB, and - poof! - one newly
minted brick.

Luckily, swapping controllers brought it back to life; no data was
lost.

I never said anything about putting the drive on top of the case.

I said I place the slave drive on top of the power supply. There is
a nice space there that cradles the drive so it can't go anywhere.

I also mount the master hard drive in a separate enclosure and cool
it with a fan. It sits on top of the CD player right next to the
slave drive, so it's easy to connect the interface cable.

Most hard drive installations provide little or no cooling, so the
drive fails early due to heat buildup.

Blowing air past the drive cools it to room temperature and solves
the problem.

I also remove all the cases and discard them. This prevents heat
buildup from drying the electrolytics on the motherboard, so the
electronics lasts longer and is more reliable.

I do have one computer that is sensitive to heat in the summer and
crashes more often than normal. A simple fan salvaged from a
refrigerator freezer solves the problem. These fans are designed to
run very quietly, so they add little noise to the system.

Regards,

Mike Monett

Antiviral, Antibacterial Silver Solution:
http://silversol.freewebpage.org/index.htm
SPICE Analysis of Crystal Oscillators:
http://silversol.freewebpage.org/spice/xtal/clapp.htm
Noise-Rejecting Wideband Sampler:
http://www3.sympatico.ca/add.automation/sampler/intro.htm

 

[Mike Monett]

Look at almost any of my articles in c.a.e and c.l.c. I refrained
above and before to illustrate the sort of problems your
formatting caused. KISS applies. Reformatting blindly is
especially deadly to code examples.

You will not find any of my posts that reformatted code or ascii
art. That requires very good software that has taken over a decade
to write.

If you have a problem with garbled posts, you need to give an
example.

If you can't take the time to show me what your problem is, I'm
afraid I can't help you. I don't have the time to look up your posts
and try to guess.

Regards,

Mike Monett

Antiviral, Antibacterial Silver Solution:
http://silversol.freewebpage.org/index.htm
SPICE Analysis of Crystal Oscillators:
http://silversol.freewebpage.org/spice/xtal/clapp.htm
Noise-Rejecting Wideband Sampler:
http://www3.sympatico.ca/add.automation/sampler/intro.htm

 

[Robert Adsett]

This is where my inexcusable romanticism and personal prejudices come
to the fore.

I would prefer that they use any OS at all, even Windows, as long as
the instrument itself has a solid feel -- as long as it feels like an
instrument. I want it to be something that isn't cheap -- something
made by people who think, and who care.

I believe the point where you are heading to is that the operating
system should be invisible. It really shouldn't be obvious until you
stop and think about it that ther even is an OS involved, it certainly
shouldn't be obvious which one it is.

Robert

 

[joseph2k]

If you want deep memory, Tek doesn't seem to have any great offerings
(at least in the less-than-a-car price range I was looking in). They
*do* have true high speed memory, though. If it's a 4ch 1GS scope with
2500 points, it will capture at 1GS to 2500 points on all 4 channels.
Some of the other scopes (eg low end HP/Agilent like DSO3000) claim more
points but actually start falling down when you really want multiple
channels or the highest sampling rate.

The HP/Agilent mixed signal stuff has deep buffers, but the sample rates
on the scope side are very low. A 100MHz digital scope from Tek is 1GS.
A 100MHz Agilent mixed signal scope (546xx series) is 200Ms. That also
applies on the digital side. Timing mode only (no state mode) at 200Ms
sounded bad to me for any bus over about 33MHz, but I never tried it
myself.

Lecroy claims deep buffers and good sample rates, but I've never used
one. I don't know if they really keep the deep buffering at max sample
rates or with multiple channels active. They do have a loaner program
which would let you try one out. Most comments I saw were about hating
the UI, but you can learn any UI eventually.

I have heard many complaints about LeCroy's user interface, i have not found
it to be all that difficult. Then again, i can live with "typical" "IBM
TSO" interfaces, which while not comfortable, is functional.

 

[vasile]

I second that.
The new 6000 series mixed signal Agilent scopes are supurb. Plenty of
sample memory, very intuitive to use, and no problems with triggering.
The LA part is not as powerful triggering wise as a full blown LA, but
still very usuable for most work.

I would not touch a Lecroy. The older ones were a nightmare to drive.
I've heard the newer Waverunner series is supposed to be a bit better
in this respect, but I have not used one so can't comment.

Hi Dave,
not all have been blessed with an MK2 or MK3 or with such a beautiful
wife like you have...

If you don't have anything else than a Lecroy then you'll use it
without complains (like wifes, who must love you first and then looking
good)).
The ugly part with Lecroy is you have to save your configuration else
it's lost and takes a few minutes to get it back if someone else has
change it to it's own favorite.
The spectrum analyzer function is a mess, and there is no span function
prior to the time base function. So the time base is changing the span
too. I don't know if others scopes are doing the same, but I use quite
much the spectrum analyzer function for noise measurements.

greetings,
Vasile

 

[Data]

I believe the point where you are heading to is that the operating
system should be invisible. It really shouldn't be obvious until you
stop and think about it that ther even is an OS involved, it certainly
shouldn't be obvious which one it is.

Well said! You've hit on it precisely.

--mpa

 

[joseph2k]

We bought a few LeCroy scopes this past spring (a couple of WaveRunners
and a WavePro), chosen because of the lower price. I hate them. The
user interface is terrible. They run the desktop version of Windows XP
(which crashes!). LeCroy recommends you run a virus scanner on them
and run windows updates -- which may or may not be incompatible with
LeCroy's software (we keep them off the network, but this makes it a
pain to transfer data off them for analysis). They are extremely slow
to rescale or change range.

The cheaper WaveRunners, however, are better then the more expensive
WavePro (although the protective layers on the screen of one of the
cheaper scopes looks like it may be delaminating). The expensive
WavePro was crashing constantly. Sometimes it would seem the device
under test wasn't producing any signal, but it was just that the scope
had crashed and wasn't updating the display! ("fixed" by a scope
reboot). When the touch screen stopped working, we returned it for
repair. The sales rep arranged for a loaner, faster then our 1GHz
scope. It crashed, too. When ours came back from LeCroy, the only
"repair" they did was to reinstall Windows! The touch screen worked
for another couple of months then went out again. Now the front panel
is dead. The only way to change the settings on the scope is with a
mouse, going through many menus to do something as basic adjusting the
timebase. It's going back for repair soon.

I can't believe anyone would sell a scope that crashes. Why would you
build a dedicated scope on a desktop operating system? Do you really
need to browse the web or send email from your scope? Do you want to
worry about your scope getting infected by the latest Windows exploit?
That's just wrong. As someone said elsethread, "LeCroy is evil".

This is a true horror, some managers and executives at LeCroy direly need to
be gruesomly executed in a Friday the 13th type style for this. I still
find it hardly believable that anyone manufacturing anything even faintly
realtime could possibly select any MS windoes variation for an OS.

 

[dmm]

I do have one computer that is sensitive to heat in the summer and
crashes more often than normal. A simple fan salvaged from a
refrigerator freezer solves the problem. These fans are designed to
run very quietly, so they add little noise to the system.

A few years ago, my pc was crashing out, but the problem was fixed when
I cleaned the heatsink of all the dust build-up. The fan on the heatsink was
working, but dust had eventually gathered in the areas where was effectively
no air movement.

 

[Mike Monett]

A few years ago, my pc was crashing out, but the problem was fixed
when I cleaned the heatsink of all the dust build-up. The fan on
the heatsink was working, but dust had eventually gathered in the
areas where was effectively no air movement.

That's another reason why I leave the covers off my computers. You
can see when dust and lint is starting to collect in the cpu
heatsink and around the inlet slots to the power supply. Then you
can schedule time for a good cleaning.

Regards,

Mike Monett

Antiviral, Antibacterial Silver Solution:
http://silversol.freewebpage.org/index.htm
SPICE Analysis of Crystal Oscillators:
http://silversol.freewebpage.org/spice/xtal/clapp.htm
Noise-Rejecting Wideband Sampler:
http://www3.sympatico.ca/add.automation/sampler/intro.htm

 

[Joel Kolstad]

That's another reason why I leave the covers off my computers. You
can see when dust and lint is starting to collect in the cpu
heatsink and around the inlet slots to the power supply. Then you
can schedule time for a good cleaning.

You just looking for an excuse to fire up an air compressor with a blow-off
nozzle. I know how much fun those are! (And it really is amazing how
much dust comes out of old PCs...)

 

[jasen]

I leave the cover off the computer, and set the slave drive on top
of the power supply. So it's very easy to change the backup drive,
which means it's easy to keep the backups updated.

not a good idea.

The case protects the innards of ypur pc from fslling screwdrivers,
paperclips, globs of solder, coffee etc...

It also keeps the EMI inside.

if the drives slides off it could do some damage to itself and whatever it
lands on,

the connectors on the drive and the cable oftern aren't designed for a
large number of reconnections.

It's reccomended to use a removable drive tray instead,

external SCSI,SATA, or USB2 drive enclosures are another option.

Bye.
Jasen

 

[Mike Monett]

not a good idea. The case protects the innards of ypur pc from
fslling screwdrivers, paperclips, globs of solder, coffee etc.

I don't have any paperclips. The screwdrivers are on another bench
(also with a computer with the case removed.) There is no solder
near the computers. I put my coffee cup on the left side of the
monitor, the tower is on the right.

Like most users, it is a tower. If anything falls near the computer,
it will hit the bottom panel. Most of the cards are removed except
the video and modem. The motherboard is vertical, and hard for
anything to reach back there. So the computer is mostly empty and
not really at risk for anything falling in.

The only thing at risk is the keyboard, and I'm getting very good a
removing the key switches and cleaning out the coffee and other
grunge.

It also keeps the EMI inside.

My biggest problem is radiation from the monitor that sometimes
clobbers a distant classical music station when I'm running DOS. I
hear blip-blips when scrolling through a page. Can't do much about
that except install an outdoor antenna and use shielded coax. The
landlord would have a fit.

Anyway, I just switched to a 5/8 wave vertical mounted on the radio
stand. That seems to have improved the noise problem quite a bit.

Which doesn't make any sense, of course. If the antenna picks up
more signal, the IF stage should go deeper in saturation. But the
noise from the monitor is also increased, so it should make the same
amount of noise when scrolling.

Maybe the station boosted their power, or changed the antenna
radiation pattern.

if the drives slides off it could do some damage to itself and
whatever it lands on,

The master drive is bolted down in its own cooling box. The slave
sits on top of the power supply, and the sides of the case keep it
from going anywhere.

the connectors on the drive and the cable oftern aren't designed
for a large number of reconnections.

I lubricate the connectors with ordinary vaseline. This provides a
true metal-to-metal contact which reduces the contact resistance by
an order of magnitude and also stabilizes it. The connectors last a
very long time. If one starts giving problem, it shows up while
booting. Reseating the connector usually fixes it. When the cable
finally wears out, I have dozens of spares from other junked
computers.

I usually swap drives several times per day, and more often when I'm
bringing up another computer. I've been doing this for years on the
same cable and it hasn't degraded.

It's reccomended to use a removable drive tray instead, external
SCSI,SATA, or USB2 drive enclosures are another option.

Maybe. What about removing the covers to improve cooling, make it
easy to switch pcb's and drives, and monitor lint buildup on the cpu
heat sink and power supply inlets?

Bye.

Jasen

I love your exit. Simple, to the point, and effective.

Regards,

Mike Monett

Antiviral, Antibacterial Silver Solution:
http://silversol.freewebpage.org/index.htm
SPICE Analysis of Crystal Oscillators:
http://silversol.freewebpage.org/spice/xtal/clapp.htm
Noise-Rejecting Wideband Sampler:
http://www3.sympatico.ca/add.automation/sampler/intro.htm