BSMS keypad lock ups

From: Joseph Dumais <jdumais2@unlnotes.unl.edu>
Date: Mon Jul 20 2009 - 13:15:29 EDT
The BSMS keypads on two of our systems lock up about once every two or 
three weeks.  This is usually noticed by the next operator being unable to 
remove the standard from the magnet but sometimes the operators cannot 
remove their sample at the end of their run.  You can often free it by 
addressing the BSMS unit with a TOPSPIN command line input like "RFSHIM" 
but sometimes we need to press the BSMS reset button.  I prefer not to 
train users on this reset method for fear that they will start hitting the 
reset at the first sign of any problem.  One thing that we have correlated 
to this problem was a user that was not closing the TOPSPIN software but 
rather just logging off of XP and thus terminating TOPSPIN in an abrupt 
manner. 

In the last year or so we have started to have a problem that displays the 
error message "BSMS error process locked by indeterminable process".  I 
think that is the exact wording.  These may be related errors but when the 
message shown above appears it often requires a reset to free the BSMS 
communications.

We have been running XP on our three AVANCE systems with TOPSPIN 2.1 pl4 
and have seen this on the two that are open to walk up users but not on 
our limited use high field system.  Perhaps that is related to the more 
limited number of operations?   We recently upgraded our DRX (TOPSPIN 1.3 
pl8) from Windows 2000 to XP and for the first time we know of this error 
(the "BSMS error process locked by indeterminable process" one) occurred 
on that system.  It occurred in ICON operations and locked ICON out of the 
BSMS for the rest of the remaining runs meaning that the system failed to 
relock and shim each following sample.  In ICON we normally recall a shim 
set at the start of each sample run so ICON was trying to address the BSMS 
via a command line interaction with a command that normally frees the BSMS 
hang-ups when they are not of the "BSMS error process locked by 
indeterminable process" type but that did not work even after the repeated 
attempts with each sample.  The run was not lost since all of the samples 
were of the same solvent so the lock operated autonomously and the samples 
were consistently made so the shims were ok. 

It is a big leap on my part but since this had not appeared on this one 
high use system until we upgraded to XP I am wondering if it is related to 
XP.  We are up to date on our BSMS firmware files.

My questions are:

1)  Are you seeing the BSMS keypad ignore any and all keypad inputs on a 
regular basis such as once every week or two?
2) Have you seen this "BSMS error process locked by indeterminable 
process" and if so what operating system(s) are you running and which 
Bruker software package(s) are you using.
3)  If you are having these issues have you developed any reliable work 
arounds?

The lock up without the error message happened last Friday on our 300 and 
I was just interrupted for that same hang up on our 400 while I was 
writing this.

Thanks.

Joe

______________________________________
Joe Dumais, Ph. D.
Associate Research Professor
Director of Research Instrumentation Facility
Department of Chemistry / University of Nebraska Lincoln
834 Hamilton Hall / PO Box 880304
Lincoln, NE 68588-0304
Phone (402) 472 6255 / Fax (402) 472 9402
http://www.chem.unl.edu
Received on Mon Jul 20 13:15:05 2009

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