Chromatography Forum

Hi all,

Recently, we had to re-install Windows 95 and chemstation on our computer attached to a HP 5890 GC. The newer version of chemstations we installed is A.06.03 and even after installing the I/O libraries and configuring the interface board, instrument and autosampler according to all the manuals ie. SICL name changed to "hp82341" and bus address changed to "30", chemstation still says that the injector 1 and GC 1 are not configured properly, but will continue to open the software normally despite that. The configuration editor in chemstation states that HPIB0 is the GC and HPIB1 is the injector, yet they aren't communicating. Also, the VISA assistant recognizes the hp82341 that I manually configured, but then I go to map driver directory there is no executable file in the VXIPNP folder to use. Since I've followed all the manuals that I've received from Agilent and what I've found online, I don't know how to proceed getting the software to recognize the instrument. Any thoughts?

Thank you so much!

If the HPIB address of the card in the computer changed to 30 it may not be seeing the card. Not sure but I believe the card address is set using the DIP switches on the card, so if that didn't change it should have the same address that was used before. If the software has the wrong address for the card it won't communicate with any of the attached devices.

Thank you for your reply. The card wasn't changed during the re-installation so it should have remained the same albeit I don't know what that was and I changed the bus address to 30 according to the manuals instructions. I can't determine if there are any port conflicts since the device manager doesn't recognize that the I/O config has been run and won't open the HP-IB.

I'm wondering if the OS is not correct for this version of Chemstation even though I was told Win 95 communicates with A.03 to A.06 versions. It's model G2070AA

Also, when I clock "Auto Add" in the I/O config window it picks up 2 ports and labels them as ASRL1 and ASRL2 which indicates they are RS-232 serial interface and those two are regularly found by the VISA assistant.

I may just uninstall chemstation and try again, but doubtful that will work.

If you look at the HPIB card in the computer you should see a red block with white switches. There is a matrix usually in the manual to decode the setting. They work as additive switches to set the address. Switch #1 ON =1, Switch #2 ON =2, Switch #1 and #2 ON =3, Switch #4 ON =4, Switch #4 and #1 ON =5 Switch #4 and #2 ON =6, Switch #4, #2 and #1 ON =7, Switch #5 ON =8 ect.

The switches activate numbers 1,2,4,8,16 so you would need to have all but the 1 turned ON to have an address of 30.

I once had a computer and 4 5890s and 4 autosampler controllers connected together by HPIB so I learned the numbering well lol.

The instrument HPIB cards are configured the same way so double check to make sure what the setting are, but if you wrote them down before reinstalling everything they should be exactly what they were before.

I'm wondering if the OS is not correct for this version of Chemstation even though I was told Win 95 communicates with A.03 to A.06 versions. It's model G2070AA.

I ran a 5890 on Windows 95 with A.06.03 until about a year ago. Currently I run a different 5890 using Windows NT4 and A.06.03.

So you have a good matchup. Did you assign in Configuration Editor the addresses/codes for the 5890 and the 7673 ALS? You didn't mention that.

SICL name changed to "hp82341" and bus address changed to "30"

Yes, "hp82341" with the hp in lower case (even if it's actually a #82350 board) and bus address changed to "30" is correct to configure the board.

Hello,

i don't understand this part:

The configuration editor in chemstation states that HPIB0 is the GC and HPIB1 is the injector

You have to set the HPIB adress for your instruments in the configuration editor. So you have to tell what adresses you use.

The "standard" adress for the GC 5890 should be 15 if I remember correctly.

Please read this and verify the GPIB adress of your GC.

http://www.chem.agilent.com/Library/Sup ... a10546.pdf


I recently replaced an old HP KAYAK PC with an newish Win XP PC with Chemstation A.10.02. (This will work too.)

You have to set the HPIB adress for your instruments in the configuration editor. So you have to tell what adresses you use.

The "standard" adress for the GC 5890 should be 15 if I remember correctly.

Yes, typical address for 5890 GC is 15, and typical address for 7673 autosampler is 8.

Thanks asm! It worked after that easy and quick fix. I am writing this all down in case this happens again, which I'm hoping an upgrade will happen before another crash. Thank you all for your replies and advice. If I encounter any more issues with this instrument and computer I will definitely be asking you all again. Cheers!

Hello,

i don't understand this part:

The configuration editor in chemstation states that HPIB0 is the GC and HPIB1 is the injector

You have to set the HPIB adress for your instruments in the configuration editor. So you have to tell what adresses you use.

The "standard" adress for the GC 5890 should be 15 if I remember correctly.

Please read this and verify the GPIB adress of your GC.

http://www.chem.agilent.com/Library/Sup ... a10546.pdf


I recently replaced an old HP KAYAK PC with an newish Win XP PC with Chemstation A.10.02. (This will work too.)

You will need a new PC interface card or USB adapter if you go to a new XP computer. Few computers past the pentium 3 have ISA slots for the common ISA GPIB interface cards. In addition none of the Agilent/HP IOlibs that run on XP will recognise the ISA card so you will need a PCI card or a usb adapter.

I run mine on a Kyak with Chemstation MSD B version with Windows 2000. I just put some more RAM (was really cheap) and a 100 gb IDE hard drive in and a PCI USB card so I can use flash drives and it works great. I take my data off with a flash drive and analyze it with Chemstation MSD E version on my office computer.