The Joy of obsolescence

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ignoramus
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Posted by ignoramus: Mon. Feb 23, 2015 - 11:05 PM
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I am presently operating a flying probe tester controlled by a PICMG1.0 computer.

 

PICMG is a standard addressing issues of various bus architectures.

The computerconsists of a full length single card PC slotted in a PCI and ISA bus slot.

 

ISA  is used to provide a home for motion control and measurement systems cards while PCI bus is used to cater to the frame grabber requirement.

 

The PC used to run winNT originally but now runs XP. In fact the original PC card has been upgraded to one of these  

 

http://www.ibase.com.tw/2009/IB9...

 

My world was at peace until one day the frame grabber card went tits up.

 

The image in a window turned mustard yellow ( literally ) and the camera alignemnt was no more.  I routed camera video to an external screen and lived with this problem. Recently ( half a year ago i noticed the motion system wasshowing some positional errors. This was raced to rotary shaft encoders and now with the new shaft encoders and a replaced linear power supply everything bar the vision is great.

 

I purchased a second hand frame grabber on ebay and voila... mustard screen stillpersists.

 

On to the real problem. When the vision card failed initially the PC showed some unusual problems which disapeared oupon removal of offending card. The failed card had the same effect on other PCs.

 

The replacement card does not interfere with operation of the PC and as already noted does not work.

 

Onto the questions:

 

a) has the original failure done some damage to the PCI interface on the PC card?

b) is there some way of testing the health of the PCI bus?

c) if damaged, is the damage bus wide ( sorry no pun intended)?

d) are the PCI slots isolated from each other such that a failure of one slot does not affect adjacent slots?

 

All comments welcome

 

 

 

 

Tags:

Learning and Information, General Electronics
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ignoramus
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Posted by ignoramus: Tue. Feb 24, 2015 - 09:20 PM
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No takers?

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Torby
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Posted by Torby: Tue. Feb 24, 2015 - 10:53 PM
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I guess no AVR freaks are experts on your frame grabber.

The largest known prime number: 282589933-1

It's easy to stop breaking the 10th commandment! Break the 8th instead. 

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Plons
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Posted by Plons: Wed. Feb 25, 2015 - 12:28 AM
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I think we all face the obsolescence of devices from time to time. I am in the process of moving from WinXP to Win7 for the work PC. Tonight I found that there is no driver for the Canon scanner. Grrrrrr, I hate that.

 

I wish I could help you out, Igno, but I lack the knowledge of PCI and that stuff.

 

Nard

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Simonetta
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Posted by Simonetta: Wed. Feb 25, 2015 - 01:06 AM
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With any card-edge based products, first try wiping the card-edges with alcohol and re-seating the cards into the slots.  Then contact the manufacturer.

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js
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Posted by js: Wed. Feb 25, 2015 - 01:56 AM
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hmmm didn't the storm and water ingress and falling trees destroy that computer and the insurance is going to buy you a brand new one??

John Samperi

Ampertronics Pty. Ltd.

www.ampertronics.com.au

* Electronic Design * Custom Products * Contract Assembly

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ignoramus
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Posted by ignoramus: Wed. Feb 25, 2015 - 07:34 AM (Reply to #6)
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Simoneta,

 

An interesting take...

 

I shall try the solution ( sorry the alcohol rub ) and report.

 

John,

Almost got knocked out by a "widow maker" aka ghost gum. They tend to shed branches at odd times. This one did it in broad day time no wind .. it just went down on top of the usual parking spot.

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RickB
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Posted by RickB: Wed. Feb 25, 2015 - 06:53 PM
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Expanding on what Simonetta said, are Caig contact enhancement products available in Oz? Your symptoms sound like something one of their products would fix. Used it for years to "repair" a lot of switches in older Tek scopes and ic/socket issues.

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jgmdesign
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Posted by jgmdesign: Thu. Feb 26, 2015 - 02:36 AM
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The PCI bus slots are not isolated from one another.  It is possible that the driver on the CPU card has been damaged.  I don't suppose you have another card that you could try?  does the video card that is built into the CPU function properly? 

 

JIm

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ignoramus
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Posted by ignoramus: Thu. Feb 26, 2015 - 07:06 AM
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Jim,

 

Sadly no spares. Onboard video operates OK with frame grabber unplugged from PCI slot. As I type the machine has been repositioned, levelled and is undergoing self calibration against a tooling plate.

 

Camera vision has been redirected to an external monitor which has cross hairs inscribed on the display so that some kind of visual alignment can be implemented while this question of the frame grabber gets resolved.

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