Chromatography Forum

Hello All,

I have a Micromass LCT Classic which recently had the motherboard on the EPC fail. It is totally dead, won't post. Attempts to use a different motherboard and network card has resulted in errors. Even though we have been trying network cards of the same generation we can't get it configured correctly to allow communication and we don't have any documentation that helps.

If anyone has any experience replacing this computer or spares I would appreciate any help I can get.

Thank you in advance.

Janeen

Ouch, I really feel for you. Those EPCAS systems look so flimsy, I'm worried the same thing will happen to mine one day soon.

Your best bet is to contact Waters and see what solutions they can offer you. You might also get lucky using a third party supplier, but the EPC's they have usually come with a system... and they're not willing to split them up. Maybe contact a qualified specialist to see if they can repair the original motherboard?

Please update if you find a solution.

How are you booting to a replacement motherboard? Most current EPCs boot to a board mounted flash drive containing appropriate VxWorks and the script telling the EPC to go look for and log into the Masslynx host. Try using a IDE to CF type of adapter, with the flash card from your original board. Connect to the 'new' EPC motherboard via serial port COM1 and watch the boot process via Hyperterm.

Thanks entropiclabs. I will definitely keep you informed of the progress.

Hello mhr311.

The EPC boots from a VXWorks disk. We have watched the boot process via Hyperterminal and can see that the EPC starts up, request an image from the acquisition computer but it fails because the NIC I/O information doesn't not match the network boards we have tried. If we could modify the image to reflect one of our network card replacement options or find an exact replacement for the original network card we think we would be back in business.

What we know is the network card needs to be a 3com 3c905 (not sure which revision).

Waters has provided all the information they have but it hasn't been enough so far.

Thank you for your time and suggestions!

janeen

If you're booting the VXWorks off a floppy then that's an older system. What type of cpu is on the new EPC motherboard? If you look at your EPC boot floppy you'll have a file called bootline.txt which is what the boot process reads at boot. If a Celeron cpu, bootline.txt is renamed from bootline.fei; if a Pentium (II?) cpu, then its renamed from bootline.elt. If an ISA bus motherboard it might have been a 3COM5x9 PCB, also known as an Etherlink III which sometimes did require a config done via booting a DOS startup floppy; if a PCI interface, usually a 3COM 10/100 PCI NIC, then it should have been a Plug and Play PCB. When watching the boot process via Hyperterm where is the boot hanging?

I forgot to include the motherboard information that we have, it is a Motorola and the PN on is 01-w3639f 13c.

Below is some hyperterminal output. I thought it might be more efficient to include rather than explain it but the formatting looks a bid off in parts.

Loading...





VxWorks System Boot


Copyright 1984-1996 Wind River Systems, Inc.





CPU: PC 486
Version: 5.3.1
BSP version: 1.1/1
Creation date: Jul 1 1998, 08:43:21


Attaching to floppy disk device... done
Reading boot params from /fd0/bootline.txt...

mmUsrBootLineInit: bootline =
fei(0,0)bootHost:/masslynx/lct/vxWorks/vxWorks u=Micromass pw=analysis h=64.1.1.
1 e=64.1.1.2 tn=vxtarget o=fei s=bootHost:\masslynx\lct\vxworks\lctof.txt


Press any key to stop auto-boot...
0
auto-booting...


boot device : fei
processor number : 0
host name : bootHost
file name : /masslynx/lct/vxWorks/vxWorks
inet on ethernet (e) : 64.1.1.2
host inet (h) : 64.1.1.1
user (u) : Micromass
ftp password (pw) : analysis
flags (f) : 0x0
target name (tn) : vxtarget
startup script (s) : bootHost:\masslynx\lct\vxworks\lctof.txt
other (o) : fei

Attaching network interface fei0... done.
Attaching network interface lo0... done.
Loading...
Error loading file: errno = 0xd0003.
Can't load boot file!!











VxWorks System Boot


Copyright 1984-1996 Wind River Systems, Inc.





CPU: PC 486
Version: 5.3.1
BSP version: 1.1/1
Creation date: Jul 1 1998, 08:43:21


Attaching to floppy disk device... done
Reading boot params from /fd0/bootline.txt...

mmUsrBootLineInit: bootline =
fei(0,0)bootHost:/masslynx/lct/vxWorks/vxWorks u=Micromass pw=analysis h=64.1.1.
1 e=64.1.1.2 tn=vxtarget o=fei s=bootHost:\masslynx\lct\vxworks\lctof.txt


Press any key to stop auto-boot...
0
auto-booting...


boot device : fei
processor number : 0
host name : bootHost
file name : /masslynx/lct/vxWorks/vxWorks
inet on ethernet (e) : 64.1.1.2
host inet (h) : 64.1.1.1
user (u) : Micromass
ftp password (pw) : analysis
flags (f) : 0x0
target name (tn) : vxtarget
startup script (s) : bootHost:\masslynx\lct\vxworks\lctof.txt
other (o) : fei

Attaching network interface fei0... done.
Attaching network interface lo0... done.
Loading...
Error loading file: errno = 0xd0003.
Can't load boot file!!

Attaching to floppy disk device... done



[VxWorks Boot]:
[VxWorks Boot]:
[VxWorks Boot]:











VxWorks System Boot


Copyright 1984-1996 Wind River Systems, Inc.





CPU: PC 486
Version: 5.3.1
BSP version: 1.1/1
Creation date: Jul 1 1998, 08:43:21


Attaching to floppy disk device... done
Reading boot params from /fd0/bootline.txt...

mmUsrBootLineInit: bootline =
fei(0,0)bootHost:/masslynx/lct/vxWorks/vxWorks u=Micromass pw=analysis h=64.1.1.
1 e=64.1.1.2 tn=vxtarget o=fei s=bootHost:\masslynx\lct\vxworks\lctof.txt


Press any key to stop auto-boot...
0
auto-booting...


boot device : fei
processor number : 0
host name : bootHost
file name : /masslynx/lct/vxWorks/vxWorks
inet on ethernet (e) : 64.1.1.2
host inet (h) : 64.1.1.1
user (u) : Micromass
ftp password (pw) : analysis
flags (f) : 0x0
target name (tn) : vxtarget
startup script (s) : bootHost:\masslynx\lct\vxworks\lctof.txt
other (o) : fei

Attaching network interface fei0... done.
Attaching network interface lo0... done.
Loading... 739712 + 37800 + 15748
Starting at 0x108000...

Attached TCP/IP interface to fei unit 0
Attaching interface lo0...done
Loading symbol table from bootHost:/masslynx/lct/vxWorks/vxWorks.sym ...done


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]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]] Development System
]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]] VxWorks version 5.4
]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]] KERNEL: WIND version 2.5
]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]] Copyright Wind River Systems, Inc., 1984-1999

CPU: PC PENTIUM. Processor #0.
Memory Size: 0x7fff000. BSP version 1.2/0.
Executing startup script bootHost:\masslynx\lct\vxworks\lctof.txt ...
sysClkRateSet(100)
value = 0 = 0x0
cd "/masslynx/lct/vxworks"
value = 0 = 0x0
ld < mmvxlib.o
value = 133407044 = 0x7f3a144 = mmvxlib.o_bss + 0x20
ld < epcasDriverClass.out
value = 133416680 = 0x7f3c6e8 = __ti10CEcpDriver + 0x44
ld < PciDetectExe.o
value = 133350204 = 0x7f2c33c = PciDetectExe.o_bss + 0x20
ld < epcasDriverClass.out
value = 133313948 = 0x7f2359c = __ti11CObjectList + 0x4e8
ld < rio_exe.o
value = 132912116 = 0x7ec13f4
ld < new_even_exe.o
value = 132999756 = 0x7ed6a4c = new_even_exe.o_bss + 0x78
ld < rio_ini_exe.o
value = 132843240 = 0x7eb06e8
ld < rio_mon.o
value = 133004556 = 0x7ed7d0c
ld < baseclass.out
value = 132843752 = 0x7eb08e8
ld < lctofclass.out
value = 131548304 = 0x7d74490 = lctofclass.out_bss + 0x480
ld < lctof.out
value = 133075276 = 0x7ee914c = lctof.out_bss + 0x8
iniFileSetRamDriveFtpAccount ("bootHost", "Micromass", "analysis", "/masslynx/lc
t/vxworks")
value = 133226284 = 0x7f0df2c = nRamDriveNumBlocks_P + 0xdc
rioIniFileProcess "lctof.ini"
RIO Status:
printMsg: Initialising

value = 0 = 0x0
SetMinNumPointsInPeak 1
value = 1 = 0x1
SetMinPeakValue 1
value = 1 = 0x1
SetCentroidPercentage 80
value = 80 = 0x50 = 'P'
SetSmooth 2
value = 2 = 0x2
SetSmoothWindow 3
value = 3 = 0x3
SetDiffWidths 2,2
value = 2 = 0x2
SetAnalogSamplesPerSec 20
value = 5 = 0x5
SetMUX 0
value = 35 = 0x23 = '#'
Use1GHzTDC 0
value = 0 = 0x0
SetupLCTOF
*** Page Start Address d9100 ***
Initialising readbacks
Initialising statuses
value = 1 = 0x1
StartLCTOF
value = 1 = 0x1
0x7f3f898 (tShell): MUX is DISABLED
System Manager S0x7f3f898 (tShell): Creating PI9806 4GHz TDC acquisition class
Instrument Contro0x7f3f898 (tShell): Instrument vented on initialisation
Inst0x7f3f898 (tShell): "LC TOF Micro" has been Write-unlocked
V0x7f3f898 (tShell): "MA3889 Micro" has been Write-unlocked
t0x7f3f898 (tShell): SpawnSystemManager
l0x7ea86b8 (SYSMAN): SystemManagerThread
0x7edcba4 (ACQ_SERVER): CApp::StartAcquisitionServer
rument 0x7edb688 (DATAMGR_SERVER): Data Manager Server Started
acuuarted
Started
Monitm Control Started
or Started

Done executing startup script bootHost:\masslynx\lct\vxworks\lctof.txt
->











VxWorks System Boot


Copyright 1984-1996 Wind River Systems, Inc.





CPU: PC 486
Version: 5.3.1
BSP version: 1.1/1
Creation date: Jul 1 1998, 08:43:21


Attaching to floppy disk device... done
Reading boot params from /fd0/bootline.txt...

mmUsrBootLineInit: bootline =
fei(0,0)bootHost:/masslynx/lct/vxWorks/vxWorks u=Micromass pw=analysis h=64.1.1.
1 e=64.1.1.2 tn=vxtarget o=fei s=bootHost:\masslynx\lct\vxworks\lctof.txt


Press any key to stop auto-boot...
0
auto-booting...


boot device : fei
processor number : 0
host name : bootHost
file name : /masslynx/lct/vxWorks/vxWorks
inet on ethernet (e) : 64.1.1.2
host inet (h) : 64.1.1.1
user (u) : Micromass
ftp password (pw) : analysis
flags (f) : 0x0
target name (tn) : vxtarget
startup script (s) : bootHost:\masslynx\lct\vxworks\lctof.txt
other (o) : fei

Attaching network interface fei0... failed: errno = 0.
Can't load boot file!!

Attaching to floppy disk device... done

Out of the 4 boot processes indicated only number 4 indicates a failure due to the EPC NIC. Number 1 and 2 problem usually indicates a host PC issue such as the Micromass account, IUSR_xxx account, password-some problem such that the path to Masslynx/vxworks isn't being found. (may also indicate a cable issue) Number 3 indicates a successful boot. Note that if you see repeated booting of the EPC then check if only anonymous connection box has been checked in the Peer service. If you see output similar to Attaching... fei0...done then the EPC NIC has been successfully setup. If you see (similar to) Attaching...Lo0... done then indicates successful mapping of the host PC.

There were several attempts made by our department IT tech and he found the bottom line problem was the mismatch between the image NIC I/O and the network cards we had available to try.

That hyperterminal output I included is from a variety of attempts since I don't have clear notes on what variables were tested for each.

I'm hoping to find someone who might have an old EPC in storage or the understanding of how to rewrite the image file but hope is really low at the moment.

Thanks for the suggestions so far!

You would need a copy of VxWorks to recompile the sys file as well as the symbol file. I've had luck with both Intel 10/100 Nics and Intel Express 100mbs Nic. If you have a 3COM card look for the Etherlink config file on the web (I know I've got an old one around). Good Luck.