New(ish) ChemStation on old 5890?

[AICMM]

Kimico,

I run a 5890 with an autosampler on an XP computer and I didn't have to do anything special to the controller.

I am in El Paso on a regular basis and I would be happy to stop by and discuss this with you if you would like. You can e-mail me a aicmm at flash.net.

Best regards.

[Enquirer]

I have the same problem. Please let us know your experience.

[RyanAOTI]

The HP 5890 with HPIB communications will work with any XP computer system. you will need a different HPIB card for your computer. they make a PCI and USB option for this. You can use upto HP/Agilent Chemstation 2070AA A.10.01. If you are using the G1512A controller you can upgrade to the 2070BA software. Any more questions please continue to ask away

[Enquirer]

Thank you Ryan, I have already solve the problem. You are right, we bought an interface 82350B. (In our case it was a HPLC, not a GC)
Kindly regards

[pacerlaser]

Has anybody tried upgrading to Windows 7 and using Chemstation with a 5890 Series II GC? We are under pressure from corporate to update our operating systems and I have tried using Windows 7 but the computer doesn't always communicate with the GC. I think it might have to do with .NET framework being higher than 2.0 and I'm not sure how to disable it in Windows 7. I currently have a Windows Vista computer using a USB to GPIB adapter with a 5890 Series II GC and it works great. Any ideas/suggestions?

[PhotonicGuy]

I have a friend who tried to use Windows 7 (I'm almost certain he is using also GC 5890) and eventually he switched back to Vista because he had some compatibility problems he wasn't able to solve. That doesn't mean it doesn't work but I think it needs some serious config made.

[DaveG314]

I am in the process of trying to replace several old Win2K workstations in our lab with workstations running WinXP. I am hung up on a workstation connected to a 5890 GC Series 2 with 5972 Mass Spec. Using both a USB to GPIB adapter and later a PCI GPIB card, I can get the IO config program in Agilent IO libs to communicate with the instruments. Using VISA assistant, I can send the *IDN? command to the MS and get a reply, but not the GC. It is like this on both the old and new PCs.

When I install Chemstation MSD (v3.02.01 I think), it says it can't bring up the GC. Settings between the new and old PCs appear to be consistent in the Chemstation MSCONFIG utility.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to solve this problem? I would be happy to provide additional information if needed.

Thanks in advance.

[carl.nott]

What type of HPIB cards are you using?

[DaveG314]

What type of HPIB cards are you using?

The PCI card is an Agilent 82350a and the USB-GPIB adapter is an Agilent 82357B.

I have tried the newest Agilent IO libs (15.5) with both interfaces, which allows communications with the instruments but not with Chemstation MSD. When using the version of IO libs on the old PC, the USB adapter isn't supported, but the results are the same with the PCI card.

Using newer versions of Chemstation MSD has no effect on the problem. I tried Rev D. and it was still unable to bring up the GC.

I've experimented on three different computers so far. The first was a new HP workstation that I installed a company compliant image on. It could communicate with the instruments but it had the MSD error. I then tried using an HP straight from the box, and it experienced the same problem. I then tried an older Dell PC with a clean install of WinXP SP2 and nothing else. It could bring up the GC with the PCI card, but it wouldn't be able to bring it up with the USB adapter. Unfortunately, using the old Dells is out of the question due to their poor reliability.

I like to think I am a pretty thorough troubleshooter, but that said, I am a co-op from the IT department working with lab instruments and software I know very little about. The people that work with these instruments do not know much about setting them up on a new PC. I wonder if there is some obscure setting or configuration option that I am not seeing...

[carl.nott]

Are these the cards/adapter that are currently being used with the systems in Win2K? What version of Chemstation is currently being used?

[DaveG314]

Are these the cards/adapter that are currently being used with the systems in Win2K? What version of Chemstation is currently being used?

As far as I can tell without actually opening up the old PC, the PCI card in it and the one I am using for the new computer are the same. Trying the USB adapter was an attempt to use a more up to date interface.

The version of Chemstation MSD installed on the old PC is G1701BA SP2 (B.02.00). I have tried using this version, as well as the newer D revision, and they both have the same problem.

[carl.nott]

Well, if the old computers have PCI cards in them (not ISA cards) the mass specs should have the Smart Card II upgrade, which is good. If the cards are ISA (82341 cards) you may be in a world of s#!t, but I think if you're running G1701BA they must have Smart Card II. I think.

Most of my experience is with older systems (hard to believe, right? hehe) but one of the oddities that I ran into when setting up IO Libraries with an 82350 card is when you load the IO Config and select the 82350 card I have to change the SICL interface name to hp82341 (lowercase), which is crazy counter-intuitive. I dunno if that is applicable but I might give it a shot.

Also, just running through trouble-shooting things, the GPIB addresses are set up correctly for the GC and the MS, right? If you're using a 7673 autosampler you have its GPIB address added too?

[DaveG314]

Well, if the old computers have PCI cards in them (not ISA cards) the mass specs should have the Smart Card II upgrade, which is good. If the cards are ISA (82341 cards) you may be in a world of s#!t, but I think if you're running G1701BA they must have Smart Card II. I think.

Most of my experience is with older systems (hard to believe, right? hehe) but one of the oddities that I ran into when setting up IO Libraries with an 82350 card is when you load the IO Config and select the 82350 card I have to change the SICL interface name to hp82341 (lowercase), which is crazy counter-intuitive. I dunno if that is applicable but I might give it a shot.

Also, just running through trouble-shooting things, the GPIB addresses are set up correctly for the GC and the MS, right? If you're using a 7673 autosampler you have its GPIB address added too?

Thank you for the replies. I will try changing the SICL name the next time I work on that PC.

Also, I forgot to mention that getting Agilent IO config to recognize the GPIB card is a struggle on the new PCs. I got it to work once, but I haven't been able to make it work on following attempts. The driver portion of it seems to install without incident, and the GPIB card appears normally in the Device Manager, but IO Config tells me there is no PCI GPIB card installed. The version of IO libs on the old PC is L.02.01.00, and the version we have been trying to use on the new PC is M.01.01.04. On the new PC, both versions have the same issues. However, I have no problems with detecting the card using the latest 15.5 version of the IO libs.

As for the addresses, we do not have an autosampler connected to the machine in question, and as far as I can tell, GPIB addresses are the same on the old and new PCs.

Getting this to work with the USB adapter and a newer version of Chemstation MSD would be preferable. IF changing the SICL name on the PCI ends up working, I wonder if doing that for the USB adapter would work as well. I have read that while the newer versions of Chemstation don't officially support some of the older instruments, it will still work. Any thoughts on this speculation? Honestly, I would be thrilled if I could just replace this old PC, but if the better option is doable, might as well do it right?

[carl.nott]

Also, I forgot to mention that getting Agilent IO config to recognize the GPIB card is a struggle on the new PCs. I got it to work once, but I haven't been able to make it work on following attempts. The driver portion of it seems to install without incident, and the GPIB card appears normally in the Device Manager, but IO Config tells me there is no PCI GPIB card installed. The version of IO libs on the old PC is L.02.01.00, and the version we have been trying to use on the new PC is M.01.01.04. On the new PC, both versions have the same issues. However, I have no problems with detecting the card using the latest 15.5 version of the IO libs.

Yes, I've run into problems with XP, IO Libs and a PCI HPIB card, much as you describe. My understanding is that the IO Config can 'lose' the HPIB card due to IRQ conflicts with various plug-and-play devices, usually on-board ethernet, video, and/or audio. I cannot confirm this tho as the last time I ran into the issue I just built a Win98 box with an ISA card and shelved the XP box instead (heh) since we needed the instrument up. I'm an analyst who moved into IT though, so maybe you will have more luck with that.

Getting this to work with the USB adapter and a newer version of Chemstation MSD would be preferable. IF changing the SICL name on the PCI ends up working, I wonder if doing that for the USB adapter would work as well. I have read that while the newer versions of Chemstation don't officially support some of the older instruments, it will still work. Any thoughts on this speculation? Honestly, I would be thrilled if I could just replace this old PC, but if the better option is doable, might as well do it right?

Well, I've been surprised at some of the configurations that have worked, but most of those have been using older software on XP. The GC/MSs that I'd like to move to XP do not have the Smart Card II upgrade so that really limits what I can do tho. I have used A.09.03 (GC Chemstation) on Win98, WinNT, and WinXP though, which is kind of amusing. I would think for GC-only applications it would be a lot more likely to be able to use newer Chemstations for older instrumentation than it would be for GC/MS applications.

Thank you for the replies. I will try changing the SICL name the next time I work on that PC.

Oh, and no worries. Personally I've spent many an hour trying to figure these old systems out and get to a point where it's, well, possible to recover an old system that has gone down. I figure that having 'public' discussions about it on a forum is a great way to hopefully help other folks out with their problems and hopefully figure out a few of the (many) issues that I haven't been able to overcome. So if you figure out that USB interface be sure to post the results and configuration that you got to work.

[pacerlaser]

I've been successful in getting a USB adapter to communicate with a 5890 Series II GC. What I did was open C:\Program Files\Agilent\IO Libraries Suite\bin and double click the iocfg.exe file. Then change the SICL name to "hp82341" under the HPIB setting, NOT the USB area. Don't even bother with looking at the VISA config. To get the driver for the USB 82350B device to install correctly, I downloaded and installed Agilent IO Libraries 15.5 first that way it will install the driver from there. The computer is using Windows Vista as the OS. Let me know if you have any other questions and I can send my other configuration settings.