Communication Issues

[revathiest]

We have a 6890/5973 GC/MS that was dropped off by our technician and left unworking. It has been my job to get Chemstation communicating so that the Chemists can configure the methods and bring up the equipment.

I was able to get everything working on a backup computer running Windows XP, so I'm confident that the equipment itself is fine. When I got a second computer, installed a new copy of XP and upgraded it to Service Pack 3, I went through the process of installing Agilent IO Libraries 6.2 and everything seems to be working fine. the equipments auto-identifies (except for the GC which requires that it NOT auto-identify) but chemstation is not able to communicate to the machines.

When I bring up Chemstation, I get the messag "No response, cannot bring MS on line(possible bad address or existing lock [error 204]". I found another topic with this message, but that fix doesnt work for me.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[chemstation]

Hi,

Is it a LAN or GPIB connection ? as 5973N is LAN (N stands for Network)

If LAN, can you ping the IP address of the MS and the GC ?,

You wrote that it was working on a backup computer with WinXP, Are you installing the same or later version
http://www.chem.agilent.com/en-US/Suppo ... onRev.aspx
Does it still talk with the backup computer, as sometimes the electronics freezer on the MSD, and you have to
power cycle the MSD.

Or, If you have the PC connected to the Internet, XP may have updated the .NET files, Bad News !
you need to uninstall it, and only use the .NET on the CD, Version 2.1 if memory serves me correctly.
Also, If you have the Agilent Lab Advisor, installed, you need to un-install that first, before un-installing and installing the correct .NET version, (Only took me and Agilent 2 weeks to figure that little bit of annoyance out! ) ( We ended up getting rid of the Agilent Lab Advisor, and Disabling the auto-update)

I am perplexed as to why there is a requirement for the GC to Not identify itself, why is that?

If all else fails, Clone the Backup computer Hard Drive to the new computer, and Change the HostName, and Burn an image. (Job Done!)

Alex

[revathiest]

it's GPIB, and it's the exact same disk I used to install chemstation on the backup computer. You've certainly given me some things to try, however, as I believe I have the latest .NET on the current computer. Power cycling has no effect. I also do NOT have Agilent Lab Advisor.

I will try the .NET fix first and let you know how it goes.

Thanks

*edit*

Ok... so I went in and stripped the computer of .NET, the Agilent IO libraries and Chemstation. I've learned that Chemstation doesnt include it's own copy of the IO libraries, so I installed the version I have available. My IO libraries is version 16.2 which installs .NET 4. Unfortunately, this brings me right back to where I was.

I will bring up the backup computer and compare as much as I can to see if I can identify any configuration/software differences between the two. :/