Varian Prostar 330 woes

[smallschoolhplc]

Hello!

Greetings from the chemistry department a small liberal arts college. One of the ways we stretch our budget is by running instruments into the ground, and then resurrecting them and using them some more. I have two Varian Prostar HPLC systems (each with two 210/215 pumps, single wavelength 320/340 UV detector). One system is original to us and running Star Workstation 5.51 on Windows 98SE (yeah, really) and the second one was acquired used and came in running Star Workstation 6 on Windows XP (sadly without service patches). I have install media and license codes for Star Workstation for the 5.51 system, but not for the 6 system. In hindsight, the person who sold it to me probably had install media -- I regret not asking for it!!

Age aside, both systems are working great - I replace a pump seal occasionally, but they're great for what I use them for, which is mostly teaching students how HPLC works and running a few small-scale research projects. The systems are a bit geriatric, but everything works well, and there's no budget for replacement.

Recently, one of my students started a project that really needed a diode array detector. I picked up a Varian Prostar 330 for cheap, knowing it'd need a GPIB controller, but figuring I could probably make it work. I'm only two days in, but it isn't looking good.

I have two GPIB cards available. One is a NI PCI-GPIB. The other is an HP 82350A.

I've installed the HP card into the Star 6 machine. The card installs with an ancient IOLib driver, but when I start Star Workstation, it says "lc star gpib controller card is not installed", and I can't figure out how to get the module to be recognized or load (probably as a result).

Then I did some more digging, and read that (1) the NI card was probably closer to the card that the software wanted (at least it was an NI card) and (2) that the Star software should be installed after the gpib card and its drivers. So I switched to the 5.51 system. I've gotten the card installed with NI drivers, and then reinstalled Star 5.51, but I get the same errors as above, "lc star gpib controller card is not installed".

On the 5.51 system, I also tried installing Polyview, but I don't have an access code. It says it's installing a GPIB driver (but I'm not sure that it is), and then I get what seems to be demo mode of Polyview.

I'm also hindered at this point by not having a full manual for the 330 detector. I have some release notes, but the full manual seems to be the only Prostar product that isn't online! I'm not sure if the problem is the GPIB card configuration, or a software configuration, or simply that I need a full install of Polyview and can't do one. I foolishly thought this wouldn't be all that hard - the Prostar modules I've used previously have been pretty straightforward to get recognized and configured.

If you're still reading this saga, and have any ideas, I'd greatly appreciate it!

[DoryFish]

Hi, I'm about to flee work so this is a very quick response. Have scanned you a couple of pages from the manual. p. 49, which I haven't copied, just tells you how to access the Device Manager via System Properties in Windows (sounds like you're way above needing that).

Hope this helps, if not I can scan more.

[smallschoolhplc]

Thanks for the manual scan! I'll check my settings and see if that's where the problem is. If you get a chance, could you take a look at the manual to see if it specifies a specific GPIB board, beyond "National Instruments"? I do have an NI board, but not sure if it's the right one!

[smallschoolhplc]

So with my NI board installed with either driver version 2.2 or 1.70, I can open up the board settings, but I don't have the selector for which instrument at the top. Wrong board/wrong driver? ARRGH!

[DoryFish]

I feel your pain but IMO the 330 is a beautiful detector so it will be worth the fight in the end.

I've scanned some more pages from the manual (below) and also had a look through my collection boxes and CDs etc. The GPIB box has a large Varian sticker on the front emphasising that the instrument stoftware should be installed *before* the card is installed in the computer.

If none of this helps then I'll open the computer case and see which NI board we're running.

[smallschoolhplc]

Hey Doryfish, can you tell me which version of Star Workstation you're running? I was just told by someone else that the 330 detector is only supported by version 6.4+. If that's the case, I've identified the (a?) problem.

[DoryFish]

We are running ver 6.41. That may well be your problem. How frustrating!

[dclever]

I can confirm that only National Instruments GPIB cards will work. We recently purchased Galaxie software from Persistent Systems to replace our old software so that we could upgrade from our Windows 2000 computer to Windows 7. The manual appears to be available online here:

http://www.moblesegea.com/varian-prosta ... manual.pdf

But I didn't register so I haven't actually confirmed that. I'm also at a cash strapped small liberal arts college, but the Galaxie software was only on the order of $2800 and seemed like a good long term investment since our information systems department wanted to phase out any computers running operating systems prior to Windows 7.

[smallschoolhplc]

Sorry for the late response. Classes started and I got swamped.

It looks like Galaxie licenses stopped being sold back in Dec 2015, so that would have been an option last year, but isn't currently. Bummer.

Our IT department doesn't want anything older than Windows 7 running (rightly so), either, but we compromise that I won't connect my stuff to the network and they won't mess with on the stuff that is still running 98 or xp. In hindsight, maybe I should have bought Galaxie last year, but I wasn't to the point of thinking I needed to, and I hate to drop $3k on software for 15 year old instruments that are one irreplaceable part away from not being usable.

Does anyone know if there's any currently-sold software that'll drive an old Prostar system now that Galaxie is gone?

[DoryFish]

Hi mate,

I reckon you've had a lucky escape not being able to buy Galaxie.

Do you know for sure that Star won't run with Windows 7? Imagine some of the difficulty will be finding a CPU that will fit the cards. We're still running with XP which our IT dept but I'm not letting them near my instrument until the computer dies. If you do try it with Windows 7, can you please post? Thanks