Chromatography Forum

Dear all:
I am writing to seek help for our Dionex Summit HPLC system. It has been showing errors in Chromeleon for a few months now. The result is a disconnected UVD (UV detector), and the sequence run is aborted. (No effective CAPA!)

Troubleshooting attempted:
We have substituted the USB 2.0 cable by many shorter cables, but this did not help.
We have also moved around the used USB port at the back of the PC (linked to the UVD). Disconnect also occurred again.
We thought that it occurred because of the adjacent Shimadzu HPLC and/or the laser printer sending some wrong signals. So, we turned off the printer, and turned off the Shimadzu LC when we were running the Dionex LC. The system still became disconnected, and the run aborted! Note that the power to the whole Dionex LC system is provided by a line-conditioner (so... there should be no spike or dip!).
We have bought a B-to-B USB 2.0 cable, and connected the PC to the UVD, but CM did not recognize this connection.
Did you experience similar events for your Dionex LC? Could you give me some ideas for troubleshooting? I have requested help from Dionex, but got none.

Below is a copy of some error message I got today (07/12/2007):


[Abort] 12:26:36 PM 1.498 {UV} Error reading from UVD170U @ USB-03060504. A device attached to the system is not functioning.

[Abort] 12:37:30 PM {UV} Error reading from UVD170U @ USB-03060504. A device attached to the system is not functioning.

[Abort] 1:49:59 PM 0.373 {UV} Error reading from UVD170U @ USB-03060504. A device attached to the system is not functioning.
[Abort] 1:49:59 PM 0.373 {UV} Communication error: 8.
[Abort] 1:49:59 PM 0.375 {UV} UVD is not remote.

Thank you
Alfred

Hi Alfred88,

have you checked the PC side of things?

it could be 3 other things as well:
1 the USB plug in the pc. change plug
2. the driver of the device in the pc. change or re-install
3. the one i encountered the most, check the power settings of windows:
never turn hard disk off, never turn USB device off

Dear unmgvar:
Thanks for your input.

We have implemented some changes in Windows XP (last Friday): Never turn hard-drive off, never turn USB off (most USB's are self-powered).
We did not re-install software or driver or change PC hardware at all.

We restarted the system, and ran an assay today 07/16. Then, the UVD was disconnected again! Luckily, it occurred after the batch was done.

Alfred.

Alfred88,

we now need now to go over the less comon possibilities:

check the language in the regional settings of your windows. sometimes they switch to something weird.

do you get those disconnections at random or at a precise time of the day mostly? do you have the automatic update on in the windows? this can cause an automatic restart and that will stop your work. if so then turn the feature off

see if you have another instrument on the same electric line that might corrupt the distribution of the electricity and might cause fluctuations when it goes on and off. for example a vacuum oven might do this when its vaccuum pump goes on and off.
maybe it is an instrument on the "other side of the wall'?
do you have a UPS, if not then get one, if yes, then see if it is not faulty. we had a problem like your due to a faulty UPS.

otherwise you can check this by taking only your pump, and UV somewhere else in your lab, connect it to another power outlet in a different room.set a demo autosampler in the CMserver and make a lot of injections. if you get no disconnections then it is electrical effects most probably. change the location of the HPLC.

Alfred88,

any improvements on that matter?

Dear unmgvar:
Thanks a lot for your suggestions. The 'disconnect' event did not happen for a week now.

Some more info:
We examined the audit trails, and saw that the time of incident is rather random (for certain days none, other days 3 or 4 times/day). There is an autoclave on the other side of the wall.
I stopped all the unneeded tasks, including the Task scheduler, and the windows update. It still occured.
When we swapped the UPS (power backup) of the Dionex LC with another UPS used for the TOC analyzer, the disconnect happened still! So, we took out the UPS, and monitor the Dionex LC. More than a week later, we did not see it occurred again! (Actually, it is hard to reproduce this event).
And finally, I was able to get in touch with someone from Dionex.

Thanks again,

Alfred.

are your UPS of the same type? or are they of different brands?
it could be them. like it was for me. we proved it by having dionex bring another UVD in the lab and connect to them while the first like yours was working somwhere else for several days in another spot in the lab.

i have to say that the most disturbing fact that you provided so far is:

And finally, I was able to get in touch with someone from Dionex

we get top service from them i my part of the world. for a company that goes to claim to be the 3th in chromatography in the world they should give a little more concern about tech support where ever it is, and you are in the US