Argonaut Pentium 3, 750 laptop and Rio ADCP's.

[Kevin Oberg]

Just to add my 2 cents here......

I've used an Argonaut (not sure of the model - but I see a 6120 next to the 
below the "Model" label on the back).  I've never experienced this problem 
- and neither has an another person in the office who has a similar 
machine.  I do occasionally (very occasionally) have my screen blank out - 
but I can usually get it back by some mysterious means - and without a lot 
of hassle.   I suspect a bad connection somewhere.

Since there seems to be a number of complaints, I'd be glad to contact the 
company and share with them some of the stories that've been posted 
here.  It's a shame - because the screen is one of the best I've ever had 
for collecting data in the field.

Kevin

At 1/28/2002 08:53 AM, Lars Soderqvist wrote:

>Scott,
>      I have an Argonaut Ranger M7000 with 1.0 Gigabyte Pentium III
>Processor.  I recently used this laptop for the first time to make ADCP
>measurements and also had communication problems.  The measurements were
>going great for the first few passes.  Then, for no apparent reason,
>communications were lost.  First of all, the screen would cease to update.
>Then soon after, on the "Aquire Tabular" view, "ADCP Status" would read "No
>Data" in red.  When this happened, the laptop would begin to beep every
>10.0 seconds.  I could restart the ADCP by pressing F4 to stop pinging, and
>F4  to restart, but lose that transect in the process.  We were measuring
>in  approx. 2m of water, mode 5, 10cm cell, and at 115200 baud, with Delta
>Time around 0.20 s.  Marc Stewart was involved with this ADCP measuring
>efffort, and with his help we were able to isolate this problem to the
>laptop (Evidence: the Argonaut laptop crapped out with both the Miami and
>Ft Myers Rios; the same Rios worked perfectly fine with my old reliable
>yellow Rocky laptop.)
>      I am currently running the ADCP with the Argonaut laptop in my office
>and am able to duplicate the problem.  With the ADCP pinging, but not
>recording, the laptop will lose eventually lose communications ("No Data").
>      I believe the problem is linked to the faster baud rates.  My first
>clue is that with the Argonaut laptop and ADCP running at 19200 Baud and
>38400 Baud, I was unable to duplicate the problem.  Yet, when I bumped it
>up to 57600 Baud (and 115200 Baud) the laptop would eventually crash.
>      I also believe that the problem gets worse the longer the ADCP is run.
>When I first started trying to duplicate the problem earlier this morning,
>the laptop would lose communications after 2,000 - 3,000 ensembles.  But
>now, after having the laptop and ADCP working all morning, the laptop is
>losing communications after fewer than 1,000 ensembles.  This agrees with
>field evidence obtained by Marc Stewart, who unsuccesfully experimented
>with stopping pinging between measurements in order to keep the total
>number of ensembles lower as a possible solution to the problem.
>      An additional clue (and complaint) is that this Argonaut Laptop is
>also having problems downloading SonTek Argonaut-SLs at the higher baud
>rates.  Each time I have tried to download the SLs (i.e.
>"Internally-logged" files made during ADCP measurements) at the higher baud
>rates, the laptop will freeze up in the middle of the download.  At this
>point, I have to "end task" the View Argonaut program, wait a while for the
>laptop to make the Com Port available again, and re-download the file at a
>slower baud rate.
>      I assume that other Rio users are able to measure at the 115200 baud
>with their laptops, and that Argonaut-SL users are able to download at the
>higher baud rates as well.  If this is true, then the problem has to be in
>the Argonaut laptop.  If this is the case, I hope you have sucess dealing
>with the manufacturer.  The ONLY reason we purchaseed the Argonaut laptop
>was to make ADCP measurements at the highest baud rate possible in order to
>collect the maximum number of ensembles.  If I have to limit the Baud to
>19200 or 38400,  I would have been better of tracking down another yellow
>Rocky.
>
>Please keep us up to date with this issue,
>
>Lars Soderqvist
>Ft. Myers USGS
>(941) 275-8448


Kevin Oberg
U.S. Geological Survey
Voice:	217.344.0037 extension 3004
Cell:	217.778.3235
http://il.water.usgs.gov/adcp/