Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems G98 Software failed

Hector
What do you mean by throttle? Baud rate? Buffers of RS 232? Normally one would use low buffering at low rates and high buffering at anything at or above 9600. Those are defaults on Linux and windows settings.

My bad, no USB port on the G98.

The throttle slider is not the same as reducing the baud rate. The throttle was added for precisely these sorts of issues. There is absolutely no handshaking going on and irrespective of baud rate, which should be 9600, it goes through all the right motions then things can occasionally get out of step and you are none the wiser until it just hangs.

This throttle was added to the downloader for a problem that I (I suspect I was not the only one but I was an early G series adopter so very much a guinea pig for a number of things) was having. I beta tested it. It sorted my problem. Unfortunately that was 15+ years ago, and, like the USB port, things are a bit hazy. But if you have the correct downloader, it will have the throttle slider somewhere, possibly behind the scenes somewhere. I think I slid it to the right, but when being a contortionist leaning over the tops of PC screens, its quite possible that I was looking at things up side down! All a bit of a balancing act to find the right range for the slider iirc. As you will know from your real job, these things are not always consistent and lots of things come into play, tolerances, luck, magnetic anomalies etc. So worth trying that throttle slider.

Thanks Ian for answering the question from ANet. The advice I received was precautionary and I had no problems.

Ian,

I am most thankful for your willingness to advise. I will try that, and hopefully be able to report success.

BTW I am an electrical engineer, read at Kings in London. But life takes me other places, and for a living I do big data networks.

Hector,

Indeed, it's encouraging that people care enough.

You could note that I can contribute to those with failed DSL710-720 drives, those based on Hitachi HOP-1xxx lasers (I have found with 1000, 1200S,R,N and mostly 1200T) and have found that in most cases the laser is OK though the drive fails. It has to do with the board.

Where can I "repay" my debt to this forum?

Ian
Right click on the menu bar and one can change interval and throttle. I have tested slow and fast with small and large intervals. Defaults are medium and 75m/sec. Same. I guess there is something wrong with the eprom?

This may be a bit of a long shot, but over the years I have experienced many weird faults with my and others Meridian kit and they have come down to flaky internal connector plugs and sockets (and some dry solder joints too). When did you last open up your G98 and carefully unplug and replug all the connectors you can find (but, obviously, concentrating on the comms board). Is the eprom hard soldered or plugged in? If plugged in then some very careful partial movement of the chip in its socket might be worth a try when the other easier sockets have been manipulated.

Longitude,

This is no "long shot" at all. I agree fully, G65 and the likes I had to physically remove boards and clean the contacts before I could complete the SW upgrade after exchange of a display board. I know what you mean.

Alas, here the RS232 and EPROM are on the same board. In a previous post I put ... ... nd so I suppose that the only contacts in question are on this specific socket, under the EPROM. Itself being "wiped" by the above mentioned action.

Oh well, worth asking. Perhaps I have misunderstood you, but if you have an old, working eprom could you read it and burn the contents to a new, blank replacement and go from there?

The chip used in the G98 is the same used in other pieces of Meridian equipment (i.e. 800 DV02 card) and is a bit more than an EPROM!
Is should be a surface mount chip on a 48pin carrier board.

It's certainly worth reseating the carrier board. Have you verified that the software you have obtained is O.K. (i.e. does it verify and checksum correctly? Is it definitely for the G98?)

I've never had any issues updating a G98 (and I've updated a few...)

Do you still have another G98 you can try?

Good luck,

Steve

Hi Steve
I used the same SW as on other few G98's that came in. I can get another one if needed. What are you suggesting that I do? Can one copy this to another board?
Thanks
David

Hi David,

You need to work out where the problem is. It could be the main comms/controller board that has an issue, or it could be the EPROM on the carrier board.

If you can swap the EPROM board into a different G98 and flash it there, that would prove that the EPROM is O.K.
The other thing to check is the 5-volt rail (check voltage at regulator on COMMS card) - should be 5.1 volts (too high or too low will cause issues)

If you can flash the EPROM in a different machine and transfer it back, that may work (unless there is an underlying issue with the comms board or part of the code resides elsewhere)

Let us know how you get on.

Cheers,

Steve