MSD 5973N connection issues

[labtechde]

Hi everyone, I'm sorry that my first post is so specific!

I have a standard GC arrangement with a HP 6890plus and a 5973N MSD in our uni lab, and the hard drive of the 15 year old (plus) workstation failed and I had to reinstall chemstation on a fresh system. I had major problems trying to get the software to work and I don't have so much experience with these GC instruments (particularly as I only started two months ago).

Anyway, I've narrowed down the problems to the MSD - specifically when chemstation loads with the MSD in the profile, it locks up at the synchronising stage, but it loads up fine with just the GC in the profile.
Experimenting with the Agilent IO Control, and the web interfaces and telnet for the intruments, one of the problems seems to be that the 5973N will report an IDN code if I manually send the command over the web interface:

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MSSC Command = *idn?
Response from MSSC Query = AGILENT TECHNOLOGIES,5973N,0,3.01.47
no error reported

...but if I use the Agilent Interactive IO control and send *IDN? I get:

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 * Connected to: TCPIP0::192.168.68.151::inst0::INSTR
-> *IDN?
 ! VI_ERROR_SYSTEM_ERROR: System error
Visa ErrorCode: 0xBFFF0000 (-1073807360)

...and I think that this is happening ever time chemstation tries to synchronise, locking it up, and every time the Agilent IO runs an automatic identification. The MSD instrument panel also shows that it is not locked to chemstation - but after failing the chemstation startup it displays:

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asking Chemstation

I also cannot access the MSD through telnet as it asks for a password I don't know - although I can send commands via sc3utils.exe directly to the SCIII card and it will parse them.

Attempting the update the MSD ROM through the Agilent MSD Configuration software gives me a list of errors:

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update.bat: IP=192.168.68.151
update.bat: SC3_OSTYPE=SC3ONLY
update.bat: LOGF=C:\msdchem\MSexe\firmware\5973N\installD.txt
update.bat: ====== Set real-time clock in the SmartCard .....

C:\msdchem\MSexe\firmware\5973N>msupdate.exe  192.168.68.151  time
msupdate.exe version 3.98
Can't get current MSSC revision.  MSSC not active...
Current OS   version: 1.1/21

BAD  gSC3type=0xbad0
Update aborted
Exit code = 1.  Pausing 10 seconds before exit.ECHO is off.
update.bat: ABORTED. Firmware update NOT successful.
update.bat: RETURN_STATUS=1
Press any key to continue . . .

Does anyone have any ideas about how I can get the MSD to report it's IDN to automatic requests, or what my issue with updating the firmware is, or if there is a standard password and username for the telnet terminal on a 5973?

Thanks for your patience if you made it this far! I can clarify any information if I haven't been understandable enough to anyone who wants to help.

Thanks!

[James_Ball]

I can't remember if the N version of the 5973 holds the IP address after power cycling or not. If it doesn't do you have bootP sending the corrrect IP address to the MSD?

Which version of MSChemstation are you running?

I found with some older instruments they just won't take the IP address from the bootP that runs as a service but only from the Agilent bootP program, which seems to not run on anything above XP.

5975s and I think some later 5973s allow you to set the IP address at the instrument, if so make certain what is set on the instrument matches what is set in the Chemstation setup.

Can you use the ping command and get a reply from the MSD? It should reply if it is actually talking on the network.

I had one 5973 that I had to replace the computer and it booted up a couple times then gave a similar response with not booting the MS, we tried everything then finally used a different computer and everything worked. Seemed there was a file somewhere on that one computer that interfered with the operation of Chemstation. I have used two other computers since then on that instrument with no problems, and the computer that would not work has been running an Agilent LC with no problems for several years.

One other thing we have noticed is problems when running MSChemstation on computers that have RAID1 mirrored drives, that one I mentioned before had that and another one we have will run the instrument but gives problems when trying to quantitate samples.

[labtechde]

Yes, the 5973N holds the IP address in EPROM, and it's live on the network, I can ping it, access some of the internal commands via telnet/terminal and even access the full instrument web page.

For control I have a Win7 machine running E.02.02 SP2 with the respective version of BootP, and a Win2K machine running C.00.00 with the old style BootP. The Win2K machine is otherwise identical to the original workstation that actually ran the machine - the only difference being it also controls an HP-IP machine too old for LAN.
No RAID or peculiar configs.

Running C.00.00 on the Win2K box, and C.00.00, C.00.01, B.01.00 and E.02.02 on the Win7 box all produce the same synchronising lockup if I include the MSD in the configuration.
Running A.09.0x or any of the other packages without including the MSD works fine with the 6890+, I can load methods and sequences and control as per usual.

I'm pretty sure that the key to this has to do with the MSD web interface reporting IDN with no problems, but the automatic IDN? issued by Chemstation or the Agilent IO software is always being ignored by the MSD.
The firmware update also fails, and I'm pretty sure this is due to the MSD failing to respond to the IDN? request the updater needs to use the correct firmware.

Thanks for having a go though!

[Cominch]

Hi,

I have a similar issue: the Firmware update failed during the update procedure.

You can connect via Telnet using the credentials:

username: target
Password: password

Does anyone know how to upload the Firmware files manually via FTP? I can Change the Folder to "/flash/" using FTP command CDW "/flash/", but cannot write anything there...

Dominic