Agilent Infiniium 54832D oscilloscope - MegaZoom with 128 Mpt memory depth - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: pascal_sweden
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 08, 2015, 02:42:36 pm
content: I stumbled on an old product sheet about the Agilent Infiniium 54830 Series Oscilloscopes.The 54832D model seems just fantastic:Bandwidth: 1 GHzChannels: 4+16Maximum Sample Rate: 4 GSa/sStandard Acquisition Memory: 2 Mpts/ch (4 Mpts max.)Optional Maximum Acquisition Memory: 64 Mpts/ch (128 Mpts max.)Here are my questions:1) Optional memory of 128 Mpts: Is this a software option, or do you need to add more physical memory?2) MegaZoom technology: Agilent has developed different generations of their MegaZoom technology.There is MegaZoom (initial generation), MegaZoom II, MegaZoom III, MegaZoom IV.Which MegaZoom generation is present in the 54832D model?What are the differences between the different generations of MegaZoom technology?3) Does the MegaZoom technology operate on the full memory depth of 128 Mpts?4) While this oscilloscope has relative long boot times due to the Windows XP OS, it seems to be still offering competitive features compared with today's scopes. Or is it obsolete today?Suppose one needs a 1 GHz scope with 4 GSa/s sample rate, why would one want to select a newer scope instead of this scope? Is it because of the MegaZoom limitations? Or just because of the relative slower boot times?5) Current selling price of the 54832D? What is the current expected market value of a scope like this in good and working condition?6) What is better in the 54840 series compared to the 54830 besides bandwidth?I think that the 54830 series is actually better, if you don't need the higher bandwidth, as it comes with a built-in Logic Analyzer. The 54840 series does not have a built-in Logic Analyzer.7) General improvements in today's scopes compared to the 10 year old 54830 series.Besides having a bigger bandwidth and a higher sample rate, what other improvements are there in today's scopes that justify to buy a new scope, even if you only need 1 GHz bandwidth and 4 GSa/s sample rate. Only deeper memory? But the 54832D already had an option for 128 MPts memory, and that seems more than enough. Or is it the limitation regarding MegaZoom, which makes this scope obsolete in today's standards? Or is because with the 4 times BW rule, that you strictly speaking need 4 GSa/s per channel individually, and this scope in particular has a total sample rate of 4 GSa/s, but it only has 2 GSa/s per channel. That's why the newer scopes come with 8 GSa/s in total, which has to be divided by 2, resulting in 4 GSa/s for each channel? (There are only 2 AD converters for the 4 channels, so one AD converter is shared between 2 channels).

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 08, 2015, 07:54:52 pm
content: Quote from: pascal_sweden on December 08, 2015, 02:42:36 pmReally? We had them when they were current models, but "phantastic" isn't the word I would use to describe them.These scopes were HP's (yes, HP!) first fooray into a Windows-based scope, and they weren't that great. The older ones ran Windows9x (and these sucked so much we returned all of them) and later ones Windows XP (which were a bit better, at least in terms of reliability). Compared to Agilent's non-Windows scopes, they were still pretty poor. The UI was designed for mouse control, and doesn't work that well without one. The screen is pretty small and only VGA (640x480) which for a Windows scope is too low.It's based on some proprietary HP ASIC architecture that is very slow (only 8k wfms/s or so), and processing is slow, too. It essentially uses the PC side as a display only which means all the work is done by the ASICs, and that is noticeable. That also means the scope app can only run fullscreen at 640x480 and no other resolution because it runs on a separate graphics card that was already old when these scopes came out.These old Infiniiums are one of the reasons Windows based scopes got a bad reputation.Quote4GSa/s dual channel only (3 or 4 channels are 2GSa/s only, which isn't enough to satisfy Nyquist at 1GHz).QuoteIf I remember right this was a software option.QuoteI believe it's some derivate of the old MegaZoom II. Don't confuse that with the (very fast) MegaZoom IV in the DSOX, though. As I said above, the update rate is pretty low (some 8k wfms/s), lower than on other competing scopes of that time.QuoteMegaZoom itself can't handle that much memory so if I remember right HP used some switching technique to get it to work with the 128Mpts option.QuoteWho cares about boot time? That's nonsensical! Every scope needs a certain warm-up time to conform to specs, which is usually between 15min and 30min depending on scope and environment. These scopes are booted in the morning and shutdown in the late afternoon before leaving work.BTW, the long boot time is mostly down to the slow PC platform in those scopes, including a dog slow hard drive.QuoteIt's obsolete. The sample rate is low for a 1GHz scope (especially with all channels on) and was low even when this scope was new. As I said above, the architecture is slow, and the small low res screen doesn't really help either (and due to the limitations of that architecture an external screen doesn't help much).The features sound nice but the performance is nowhere near to what a modern scope can do, even many lower mid-range scopes.QuoteBecause everything? Old, slow, no support, certain (proprietary) parts have a tend to die. There are much better scopes out there.QuoteWhy don't you check ebay yourself?The last one seems to have gone for around $2500 for one whichshould probablywork, which I don't think is actually that cheap. But then, don't forget that the fact that it carries the "Agilent" label means it will fetch a lot of money irrespective how good it is.QuoteYou're kidding, right? I mean, you can read the websites of Keysight, R&S, LeCroy for yourself to find out what the difference is between the old Infiniium 54800 and a modern upper mid-range/lower high-end scope. In short, look at sample rate, update rate, options, screen sizes and resolution.As I said before, even back in 2004 the 54800 Series was pretty poor, compared with what else was on the market, and almost 12 years later it certainly didn't get any better for the old Infiniium.It took a very long time until Agilent finally came up with a decent Windows scope (DSO9kA).

author: Howardlong
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 08, 2015, 08:57:39 pm
content: I have the 54831D which is the 600MHz version of the same scope. It's OK, but it's not what I'd call a go to scope. At one point I had that and a Tek 2467B, and almost always the first scope I used to probe something was the Tek. Why? Mostly because of the boot time, I know Wuerstchenhund doesn't agree, but typically I don't turn on a scope until I know I'm going to need it. I can't remember the last time I used a scope to do a time or voltage measurement that demanded it to be switched on for more than the boot time before probing, probably it was in the 100% tube/valve scope era, but YMMV, for example if you're in a cal lab or doing some box ticking QA for example.I replaced the hard drive with a PATA SSD, it does benefit it to some degree but it still takes a minute to boot.As has been stated, its screen resolution isn't great, but it's by no means the worst of the era, and it's not something that's at the top of my annoyances.The update rate isn't great, and to be honest the mega view (not megazoom) intensity grading isn't really anything I use, it's nowhere near as good as the intensity grading on the Vxworks scopes like the 54622D or 54642D: indeed, the Tek got usurped from poll position by a 54642D as the go to scope for some time, which feature 5s boot time, reasonably good update rate, 1000 horizontal waveform pixels and awesome intensity grading.The 54831D/54832D is good for deep serial decodes, but you need to be careful on how you set up the acquisition or you'll think it's crashed as it becomes quite unresponsive.It's not a small scope either, it takes up a lot of the bench. You have to have at least a mouse and often a keyboard to use it as not all essential settings are available from the front panel, and this is perhaps my biggest concern, I have the keyboard and mouse in a slide out under the bench.There's no touch screen. You can have a second screen but the scope app will only work within the confines of the 640x480 screen because there's hardware overlaying directly onto the screen. I have tried a secondary screen with it on a few occasions, but it's extra effort that I don't need.The UI is quite modal too, for example you can't have intensity grading and a delay/zoom window at the same time.Make sure you get some probes and the LA probe especially which is not as common as some other Agilent LA probes.If fan noise bugs you, this scope is best left avoided, but you could probably repurpose it as a hovercraft out it should the other innards fail.The frequency response is very flat in the passband.You can add your own PCI card if you want, for example for USB 2.0, but you are very limited on motherboard upgrades.Unlike many other lower end Agilent scopes, you have complete control over the acquisition settings which is often a mixed blessing really. You can leave memory depth and sampling rate in Auto, but as often as not I find myself overriding those settings manually.Best of all perhaps is that the 54831D and 54832D has liberation options.Despite my misgivings, I do use the scope fairly regularly, but not to the same extent as other ones I've owned.

author: pascal_sweden
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 09, 2015, 07:26:08 pm
content: The more I read about this scope, the more I start to wonder why they made this scope in the first place at the time of launching, given that it has so many shortcomings

author: dom0
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 09, 2015, 07:36:49 pm
content: A poor offering in a market niche can still be better than no offering at all. For example, when (T&M) gear is acquired as part of some bigger contract the company (Agilent) could supply all parts by their own, instead of contracting another (T&M) manufacturer to deliver e.g. a scope (or whatever) with the specifications from the contract.

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 09, 2015, 08:00:21 pm
content: Quote from: pascal_sweden on December 09, 2015, 07:26:08 pmDon't forget how old the 54800 Series actually is (if I remember right then the first ones appeared in 1998!), plus it was one of the first Windows based scopes (I think the other one was some Nicolet). At that time, the dominant Windows OS was Windows95/98, both not exactly stellar examples of reliability itself, which didn't help, either.Plus, the Infiniium was one of the best MSOs at that time. Not that there was so much competition, though, Tek's MDO5K (neither fast nor exactly trouble-free, either) and later LeCroy which, while offering overall faster/better scopes, only had a dreadful MSO addon called 'MS-32' which they bought in and which, in short, was a pile of stinkin' crap (seriously, it was that bad!). That's why these MSO Infiniiums mostly found their niche in areas where the combination of scope + LA was useful.If I remember right the MSO variants were also models that sold most.HP certainly deserves credit for trying, but the early start also meant that they started with the constraints of those day's PC technology. They subsequently improved many issues, but technology has moved on since then. Like, a lot.These Infiniiums also had some funny features, like voice recognition. It didn't work very well but it was certainly an interesting idea (probably born from the fact that on a typical EE bench a mouse isn't very useful).

author: pascal_sweden
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 10, 2015, 07:22:56 pm
content: Quote from: pascal_sweden on December 09, 2015, 07:26:08 pmQuote from: Wuerstchenhund on December 09, 2015, 08:00:21 pmYes, I read about that option! Really cool!Hopefully the voice recognition in the Infiniium worked better than in ED 209

author: pascal_sweden
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2016, 01:58:00 pm
content: Too much background noise