Chromatography Forum

Does anyone know what the speed limitation is for processors driving older PCI-HPIB cards?

I have an old GC/MS system (5970/5890) that was being used with a 90 MHz Pentium computer.

I would like to replace the computer as it's hard drive has died, but I'm concerned that a faster processor will not work with the HPIB card.

For example, would a 200 Mhz Pentium work?

Thanks!

You didn't state whether you will be using Windows 3.x or Windows 95, I'll assume Win 3.x because of the 5970 MSD. We currently have one Compaq 350 mHz Pentium II that uses the older 82335 HPIB card, with Win95 and A.06 Chemstation on a 5890 system, so we can verify that faster computer speeds can handle it. My guess is you'll be "dumbing down" a faster computer to use DOS/Win 3.x as (at least with a 5971 model MSD) there are potential issues upgrading 5971s to Win95.

It was running G1034C version C.03.00 on Windows 3.1

I'm not sure the exact version of the HPIB card since I haven't pull it out yet.

I've been able to load this version of the software on Windows XP and run it without a problem in the "off-line" mode. As far as the data analysis program (MSDA.EXE), there seems to be no problem with Win XP.

I picked up this Vectra VL series 5 with a 200 MHz processor, 64 MB Ram, 2.8 GB drive, CD drive, & network adapter for $9.99 on Ebay...$34.98 to my door.

I'm going to try and and load Win 98 SE and see if it works. I'm choosing Win 98 SE because it supports USB and I'll hopefully be able to transfer data files using a flash pen drive.

I would've went with a faster Vectra computer but I'm not sure about the speed limits of the HPIB. I'll report back on whether this set up worked or not. Thanks for your reply.

Moe - I know Agilent states that their software isn't "supported" with stuff like Win98, but that can mean that they've never tried it out. My "guess" is that you'll end up dummying down the Windows version. We have stored some "legacy" computers for similar situations.

We have a 5970 that runs Windows 2000 on a Pentium 4 with a 3.2G hard drive. We had ProLab Resources update all of our systems. All of 5971 MSDs were also updated. Of course, we had to update our version of Chemstation to G1701BA Version B.02. It is nice to have your sample reports generated with the correct date!

jaj - that sounds like a good resource to know. thanks.