Upgrading Mainboard in Lecroy DDA-3000 (aka WavePro 7300a?) - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: dxl
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 02, 2016, 12:37:01 pm
content: Hi Forum,i recently acquired a DDA-3000 Disk driver analyzer, which - i think - is the same as the Lecroy WavePro 7300a Scope. To fasten boot time, i thought about replacing the Hard disk with a IDE SSD. Think a bit further, it might also be a good idea to upgrade the mainboard itself - there's a Pentium 4 Mainboard in there, with 4 PCI slots. I think upgrading it to a 2/4 core Socket 775 Board would be possible, but i don't know whether Lecroy modified that mainboard (like Tektronix for example does with their TDS6/7/8000 scopes). Anyone ever tried that?Regards

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 02, 2016, 01:01:28 pm
content: Quote from: dxl on May 02, 2016, 12:37:01 pmCongratulations, nice scope. Yes, the DDA3000 is pretty similar to the WavePro 7300A (aside from a few front panel buttons).QuoteGood idea, however I'd go for a SATA SSD as the intel board in these scopes also have SATA ports. I have a 240GB intel SSD 530 in my WP7300A.QuoteThe mainboard is a standard mainboard but forget it, replacing it with a multi-core board will not work for two simple reasons:1. The scope's display is connected via DVO bus to a DVO-to-AGP adapter card which converts the output from the intel chipset graphics into DVO for the display. This card will not work with any other chipset than the i865G, and is unlikely to work with any other mainboard than the intel D865GLC due to the lack of support for the adapter card in the BIOS.2. Even if you somehow manage to upgrade the mainboard, as soon as the OS sees multiple virtual (HypterThreading) or real CPU cores WinXP will switch to the SMP kernel and the scope's hardware drivers will start acting funny and render the scope unusable. The drivers for the WavePro7k (and DDA and SDA descendants) do not work with the SMP kernel of XP, which means no multi-core CPU and no HyperThreading.What you can do is to upgrade the CPU with a faster one. The WavePro/DDA is an X-Stream scope, i.e. it very much relies on the CPU's L2 cache. Upgrade the BIOS of the intel D865GLC mainboard with the last one from the intel site, upgrade RAM to 2GB or 3GB and get a fast Pentium4 processor with 800MHz FSB and 1MB or 2MB L2 cache that is supported by the revision of the mainboard in your scope (intel has compatibility lists somewhere).Just make sure you do not enable HyperThreading as this means you have to re-install Windows or manually fiddle the uniprocessor kernel back in place as disabling HT will not make the driver problems go away.Also, make sure you download the latest X-Stream software for your scope from the LeCroy website.

author: dxl
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 02, 2016, 01:15:16 pm
content: Thanks Wuerstchenhund. After reading your post i think i'll only upgrade the Harddisk to a SSD for now.

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 02, 2016, 01:35:32 pm
content: Quote from: dxl on May 02, 2016, 01:15:16 pmI'd still recommend to upgrade RAM and CPU as well. My WP7300A came with the same old 2.53GHz Northwood P4 with 533MHz FSB and 512k cache, so I upgraded to a P4 3.2E with 1MB cache and 800MHz FSB, and this made a difference. Aside from the scope no longer feeling a bit laggy, the update rate increased a bit, which is understandable as X-Stream uses the CPU for pretty much all waveform calculations (other scopes use ASICs). It also speeds up WaveScan and helps with some of the advanced options (i.e. SDA).The D865GLC compatibility table can be found here:http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/boards-and-kits/desktop-boards/000006655.htmlHere's the last BIOS:https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/10130/BIOS-Update-BF86510A-86A-Used P4 processors are generally dirt cheap these days, so why not?

author: dxl
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 02, 2016, 02:11:14 pm
content: I'm not sure whether i will upgrade the CPU - have to check my board revision whether it supports the newer CPUs. Good to see that the BIOS can be upgraded, with the Tektronix i had before that wasn't possible.

author: user
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: May 02, 2016, 02:48:59 pm
content: You can be used a compact flash (x400 or better) with adapter ide 44http://www.ebay.com/itm/CF-Card-Compact-Flash-Card-to-IDE-44Pins-ATA-Converter-Adapter-Laptop-SSD-/181924255564?hash=item2a5b87d74c:g:UG4AAOSwAYtWPIVsI use it on tektronix TDS7000 - load time decreased by 2 times (1.5 min vs 3min)

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 02, 2016, 02:56:54 pm
content: You have to be carefull with compact flash cards. On more modern systems they are often not recognised as a fixed disk drive causing all kinds of problems. In my most recent hard-drive to SSD conversion I used a 44 pin to mSata adapter to put an mSata SSD into a Tektronix logic analyser. It could not be made to boot from a compact flash card! On an older piece of equipment Windows marked a compact flash card as a removable device which caused some software to refuse to install.

author: user
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: May 02, 2016, 03:09:28 pm
content: You have problem only with swap file.This problem is solved simply - hitachi microdrivehttp://woshub.com/removable-usb-flash-drive-as-local-disk-in-windows-7/

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 02, 2016, 03:12:22 pm
content: When using any flash based medium you really should disable the swap. Disabling swap makes Windows faster anyway.

author: user
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: May 02, 2016, 03:17:22 pm
content: Disable the swap file - its very bad idea! It leads to crashes and slow performance. Old oscilloscopes have very lower memory

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 02, 2016, 04:13:51 pm
content: Quote from: user on May 02, 2016, 02:48:59 pmWhy the hell would you want to fiddle with such a poor crutch when the mainboard in the scope in question has normal SATA ports that can take a cheep and chearful standard SATA SSD?QuoteYeah, well, that's no surprise considering how awfully slow the old TDS7000 is. But then, that's Tektronix for you.But this is not a Tek scope, and what is a good solution for an old TDS7000 isn't necessarily a good solution for other scopes. Besides, the scope in question has no 44pin EIDE interface but a standard 40pin one, besides the SATA ports. So your 44pin adapter makes even less sense.Quote from: nctnico on May 02, 2016, 03:12:22 pmUnfortunately that is not correct. Except in certain very rare border cases swap should be left enabled in Windows. It's also not a problem, unless you plan to use a SD card or a USB memory stick as system drive normal swapping isn't much of a problem for good industrial CF cards, and is pretty much meaningless for a modern SSD.What helps when running XP is to disable background defragmentation, and leaving a bit of space unused so that the drive's wear levelling can do its work. If you use an intel SSD, you can even get TRIM via intel's SSD Toolbox.

author: GlowingGhoul
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 02, 2016, 04:21:30 pm
content: Upgrade? Can you wedge a KeySight board into there?

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 02, 2016, 04:22:51 pm
content: I have been running several Windows versions with swap disabled for nearly a decade (and continue to do so when running Windows in a VM). The only problem you may run into is an out of memory error but that never has lead to Windows crashing on me. The problem with Windows is that it always pushes stuff into swap while trying to use the RAM as little as possible. Needless to say that needing to get something from swap whenever you change to a different application makes a computer extremely slow.

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 02, 2016, 04:48:25 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on May 02, 2016, 04:22:51 pmThat might well be but that's probably down to your specific situation.QuoteNo, it doesn't. It's a common misconception (like the one that the page file is only needed if there's not enough physical RAM in the PC) that Windows uses as little RAM as possible, but it's not true. Paging in Windows is a lot more complex. In 2008 Mark Russinovich has written some very good artciles about memory management in Windows:https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/markrussinovich/2008/07/21/pushing-the-limits-of-windows-physical-memory/andhttps://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/markrussinovich/2008/11/17/pushing-the-limits-of-windows-virtual-memory/The relevant bit:"[...]Perhaps one of the most commonly asked questions related to virtual memory is, how big should I make the paging file? There’s no end of ridiculous advice out on the web and in the newsstand magazines that cover Windows, and even Microsoft has published misleading recommendations. Almost all the suggestions are based on multiplying RAM size by some factor, with common values being 1.2, 1.5 and 2. Now that you understand the role that the paging file plays in defining a system’s commit limit and how processes contribute to the commit charge, you’re well positioned to see how useless such formulas truly are.Since the commit limit sets an upper bound on how much private and pagefile-backed virtual memory can be allocated concurrently by running processes, the only way to reasonably size the paging file is to know the maximum total commit charge for the programs you like to have running at the same time. If the commit limit is smaller than that number, your programs won’t be able to allocate the virtual memory they want and will fail to run properly.So how do you know how much commit charge your workloads require? You might have noticed in the screenshots that Windows tracks that number and Process Explorer shows it: Peak Commit Charge. To optimally size your paging file you should start all the applications you run at the same time, load typical data sets, and then note the commit charge peak (or look at this value after a period of time where you know maximum load was attained). Set the paging file minimum to be that value minus the amount of RAM in your system (if the value is negative, pick a minimum size to permit the kind of crash dump you are configured for). If you want to have some breathing room for potentially large commit demands, set the maximum to double that number. [...]"Tl;dr: unless you're running some borderline case (i.e. Windows Embedded on a flash medium with very limited writes) leave the paging file enabled.

author: user
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: May 02, 2016, 05:08:21 pm
content: Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on May 02, 2016, 04:13:51 pmUps... Sorry... I did not know that in the old Lecroy have SATA

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 02, 2016, 05:13:25 pm
content: Just try it yourself and notice how much faster Windows works without swap. Also look at the task manager: you'll see stuff will be put into virtual memory even though there is plenty of memory left. The way Windows' memory management works has been utterly crap for decades no matter how good it looks on paper. Oh and note virtual memory is something different than a swap (page) file according to the links you provided! Virtual memory is just an address space which is filled with chunks (pages) of remapped physical memory.And again: there is really nothing special about my situation. I just want Windows to work quick and one major improvement is to disable swap completely.

author: user
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: May 02, 2016, 05:21:17 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on May 02, 2016, 05:13:25 pmIf you have 8Gb and better RAM - no need swap for XP. If you have only 256Mb RAM - you can not work without swap

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 02, 2016, 05:53:54 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on May 02, 2016, 05:13:25 pmI tried long time ago (involuntarily), and it worked fine as long as hardly any memory was needed. Once I started loading my main application however the system ran out of memory and crashed. Reproduceable.That was a 32GB system btw.QuoteThe only thing that is crap is Taskmanager, which pretty much lies about the RAM consumption (not all RAM that is shown as "unused" is actually unused/free). And as someone who has been working with very high workloads for ages (some of my workstations already had 4GB in 2001, 32GB in 2006, 128GB in 2009 and currently between 256GB and 768GB, although under Server 2012 R2) I can't complain about memory management in Windows really. In fact, my only complaint is that older versions weren't fully NUMA aware, which on some multiprocessor systems was a bit of a pain (but there are ways around that).And it's not that Windows memory management (which for WindowsNT was some extend inherited from VMS, the mainframe OS that back then was pretty much the high integrity cornerstone of many large businesses) is substantially different than that of other modern operating systems, i.e. Linux. The differences (i.e. two vs three level paging, LRU vs FIFO and so on) are pretty minor.QuoteThat's incorrect. The page file isn't something different, it *is part* of the virtual memory space! That's why its size matters.QuoteGreat if that works for you (however, if disabling swap has such a huge impact on your system's performance then that's a clear sign of some other issues in your system, i.e. insufficient RAM, if that happens in VMs then this could be excessive memory overcommitting). For the reasons explained in the artciles I linked to however I'd not recommend to disable swap on any system unless reducing the disk activity is crucial (which it isn't on a SSD), not on a standard PC and even less so (to get back to topic) on a scope that will be fitted with a SATA SSD.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 02, 2016, 06:05:01 pm
content: Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on May 02, 2016, 05:53:54 pmNo it isn't. You should really read a book about the 386 and how MMUs map physical memory into a virtual address space in general. Accessing a swap file is nothing more than a reaction on an MMU interrupt stating the page does not exist in physical memory so a piece of physical memory must be swapped between data on a hard drive. Assuming a process always needs/uses a bit of swap space is nuts. Maybe this was true for the operating systems Windows NT stems from but those days are long gone.

author: dxl
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 02, 2016, 08:03:48 pm
content: Quote from: Wuerstchenhund on May 02, 2016, 01:35:32 pmI just checked the board revision, and it supports the latest Pentium 4 Models. So i just bought a Pentium 4 3.2GHz with 1MB cache and 800 MHz FSB for 10US$. Given the class of the scope that should be well invested

author: dxl
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2016, 08:05:34 pm
content: Seems like upgrading the Motherboard is actually possible. I put in an Acer H67H with a Core i3 3GHz Processor. Installing the Lecroy software worked without any problems, the DSO starts with that new board without problems. Only thing left is to built a DVI adapter to connect the touchscreen display.

author: Wuerstchenhund
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2016, 05:20:20 am
content: Quote from: dxl on May 11, 2016, 08:05:34 pmDid you make sure the 2nd core is disabled in the BIOS. If not then you will most certainly encounter some strange errors when actually using the scope.Sure it does boot without problems. The issues come later. I learned that the hard way after enabling HyperThreading, after which LeCroy support confirmed that some of the WP7k drivers (front panel?) won't work correctly with the XP SMP kernel.QuoteWhich is another problem.Also, you replaced a proven solid industrial-class mainboard with a cheap consumer one (Acer's reputation for building crap is well deserved, after all), which is unlikely to benefit the scope's reliability.All for no gains in scope performance (which maxes out around a 3GHz P4/1MB) and little gains in XP performance (and you're still stuck with 4GB RAM or less).However, if you still want to replace the mainboard (and lose LeCroy support should you ever need it) then I'd recommend you at least use an industrial mainboard. Which often comes with LVDS on-board so solves the issue of getting the internal display to work. Just make sure it doesn't use wonky chipsets like Marvell for storage or Realtek for NIC, and disable all but the first core and HypterThreading (if available).

author: dxl
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 16, 2016, 09:53:47 pm
content: Not sure why you're so pessimistic about the motherboard upgrade. If it doesn't work, i can still swap the mainboard back to the original.I solved the LVDS "Problem" by recognizing the the motherboard doesn't output LVDS - it output the Panel Data 12 Bit bus directly. So all i had to do was to remove the Sil164CT64 chip from the tft controller board, and solder the DVI differential signals to the corresponding pcb traces instead.The keypad is behaving strange, that's true - sometimes it shows channel LEDs although they are not activated. Seems like a fix of the driver is needed (if it's not the X-Stream Software, but i guess that's not the case) .

author: hs3
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 04, 2016, 10:23:10 am
content: Interesting information about the upgrade possibilities as well as the Frontpanel driver issue.If this progresses at some point and there would be need for hardware USB analyzer captures from WavePro 7300A I would be able to help probably. Though you mentioned the LeCroy USB Chief so you may have that taken care of already if needed.

author: dxl
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: June 04, 2016, 11:43:10 am
content: The Frontpanel is actually connected via the Lecroy PCI controller card, so there's no USB involved. I think i figured out the registers, but haven't had a chance to write a new driver so far.My WavePro actually seems to have a HW issue - as soon as Sample Memory goes above 1MS, the trace misses half of the Data. This happens on all Channels. It also happened with the original Mainboard/CPU/Software, so it can't be caused by the upgrade. Attached a few pictures, if anyone has an idea where to look for that Problem let me know.