Ram's Trouble Shooting Page
From Waisman Brain Imaging Wiki
| Type | Problem Description | Status | Solution | Comments |
| Hardware, Electrode Arms at Keck | Electrode Arms at Keck do not hold and are shifting the wooden rod on which they are mounted on | COMPLETE | The wooden pads attached to the wooden rod, both at top and bottom, need to be adjusted to keep the rod tightly in place. | The pads at the ends of the rod are held in place with screws. Since the pads are applying a force on the ceiling, the ceiling tends to bend a little and thus the rod is no longer tightly held in place. From time to time, the pads need to be adjusted to maintain the tension. Eventually we may need to get a longer screw for the ends. |
| Hardware, ShockBox | ShockBox Installation | COMPLETE | All related material is in H:\ShockBox, in my home directory. | |
| Hardware, BioPac | Brogden 1, Extra DINs required. | COMPLETE. | The ribbon cable splitter had problems and needed to be replaced. The pin diagram for the connections are in the Biopac manual page 14. | BioPac Manual (http://www.biopac.com/manuals/BIOPAC%20MP%20Hardware%20Guide.pdf#search=%22eprime%20biopac%20connection%20pin%20diagram%20parallel%20port%22) |
| Hardware, BioPac | Sensors for MRI. | IN PROGRESS. | Currently it seems like the problem is with the electrodes. | Cat and I have been looking at the noisy signal and she familiar with this issue. |
| Hardware, BioPac | When using the EDA sensors, if the signal shows a flat line. | COMPLETE. | Currently it seems like the problem is with the electrodes. The surfaces of the electrodes seem to be worn down with a lot of scratches. The other possibility is that the subjects skin may be the issue. When tested on me (Ram) the signals were very bad and noisy. | Heleen has helped with the testing and is familiar with this issue. |
| Hardware, Freezer Alarm, Rm 155 | Alarm does not work | COMPLETE. | The backup battery does not hold the required charge. Need to order a new 12V,2.2Amp sealed lead acid battery. | To add a number to the alarm.
Step 1 - Press the "PROG" Button. (The "DIAL" LED should glow steadily) Step 2 - Select the location to store the number ( e.g. For the first location dial 01) (The "DIAL" led should flash for each key press) Step 3 - Press the "#" button . (The "DIAL" LED should flash twice. This is a confirmation that the location is a valid location) Step 4 - Now Dial in the phone number. (The number must be as though you are using a regular UW phone. e.g. To reach (608)555 1234 type in 96085551234. Again, The "DIAL" led should flash for each key press) Step 5 - Press the "#" button again. (The "DIAL" LED that was on all this while should go off. This confirms successful storage). NOTE - Pressing the "STOP" button at anytime will cancel the whole process. If the Alarm is ON, pressing the "STOP" button will cause the alarm to go OFF and wait for the freezer signal (in many cases the alarm will go ON again if the freezer alarm is still ON). |
| Software, Startle Code | Errors processing a few data sets | COMPLETE. | The problem data sets identifed were 75, 81, 82, 87 and 97. No action was requred. | Some other datasets had issues too, but they were solved once analysis was moved away from Regina's machine (This needs to be checked).Upon testing it was found that data set 81 and 97 had missing channel data (only 7 columns present instead of 9, the DINS seem to be there. In the case of 82 the DINs were missing. Only one trial (trial 17, task 011) in dataset 75 had an issue. Data set 87 worked once the old output files were deleted. Gina helped recheck
the datasets. |
| Hardware, DAQPad connection, Keck MRI | Needed a better connector | COMPLETE. | Replaced the default DAQPad connector with a custom made unit. | To disconnect, slide the blue connector in the direction indicated until it clicks,
it will then slide out easily. To connect, just plug it straight it. |
| Hardware/Software, BioPac | Note. When setting up the BioPac | COMPLETE. | Run the "MP Communication type utility" and choose "UDP" (when using the cross-over ethernet connection to the BioPac PC). | This is not mentioned in the installation guide. |
| Hardware, Audio, B2 | The db levels are not high enough in the subject headphones | COMPLETE. | No fault in the cables or connectors. Added an audio amp | The potentiometer used for volume control were causing a reduction in volume. An
audio amp was added to the output of the volime control box to boost the signal to about 100db. |
| Hardware, DINS, B2 | DINs show up in an inconsistant fashion | COMPLETE. | The DIN cables were loose. Added a set of screws to keep them in place. | The DINS worked for some experiments but did not work for some other. This was because the LPT1 connector was loose (and connected at an angle) and hence some pins were in contact while the others were not. Thus the experiments that were using one set of pins worked while those using a different set did not. The experiments using that seemded to be having problems were receiving data only on a few pins were interpreting them differently. |
| Hardware, Audio, B2 | The subject side head phone produces sound only on one channel. | COMPLETE. | The cable connecting the volume control box to the audio line (that eventually connects to the subject headphones) was faulty. | The connector was removed and the both channel are taken care within the volume control box. |
| Hardware, Audio, B2 | The subject side head phone did not work. | COMPLETE. | The volume control on the e-prime was set to mute. On changing this the audio was back to normal. | |
| Software, RSS | Need of the troubleshooting page to support RSS | TO START. | TO START. | John and Alaana thought it might be nice to have an RSS feed for this page. This will take time as it is very low priority. |
| Hardware, Brogden 1, Upgrade | There seems to be no response from the subject keyboard, but the mouse and screen work. Subject room monitor has ghosting. | COMPLETE. | There are a couple of non-critical parts yet to arrive. | We are in the process of discussing what needs to be bought for B1.
Brogden 1 is now functional and we are running pilot test. |
| Hardware, Keck EEG, Subject Keyboard | There seems to be no response from the subject keyboard, but the mouse and screen work. | COMPLETE. | Check the connections on the KVM switch. If those seem to OK, then you will have to check the connections on the e-prime machine ( You will have to crawl behind the carts for this). | The KVM connections had been changed and so I relabelled cables to make things clear. There have to 4 cables connected to the KVM. Two incoming connections from the E-prime and Two connections going into the room. One connection is for the monitor while the other is for the keyboard. The mouse is connected directly from the e-prime to the subject room. |
| Hardware, EEG Room at Keck, DIN | Problem with the DINs on the Netstation. | COMPLETE. | The problem was with one of the extention cables and when removed the DINs seemed to appear correctly and seemed stable. | It looks like the problem is intermittent. During some sessions the DINs show up correctly. This looks like either a cable problem or a n issue with the port driver. I am going to first check the cable, probably make a new one.
After another closer look at the way everyone runs their experiments it seems that MIDUS is the only one that uses the DINs. Therefore the problem is NOT intermittent. The cable seems to be correctly wired. I will have to look at the cable in Brogden2 to find out what the difference is. After a quick chat with John it looks like the cable connecting the e-prime to the amps may be the one things that is causing the problem or use of the wrong port in the eprime script. |
| Hardware, Temperature Monitoring, Refrigerator | The refridgerator in room 155 tends to stray away from the actual set temperature. | COMPLETE. | Waiting for telephone line extention to be carried out by Plant Engineering. | Two possible solutions. 1) Have an old machine setup so that it is connected to our network and have it monitor the temperature through the serial port or 2) Have a telephone based device that would call a few people when there is a problem.
Based on what Ziggy told me it seems like both techniques are feasible. After considering robustness ease of setup we have chosen option 2 from the above. |
| Hardware, EGI Amps, Noise | The noise levels in the EGI amps at Keck are high and seem to have a regular pattern. | COMPLETE. | The amps are back and have been tested. It will be installed in B1 as soon as it is ready. | I have been testing the amp noise with different positions of the amps within the room. It looks as though the one of the issues was the ground connection. Without the ground connection noise levels are really high. When the ground wire is connected the noise is well within the required value, but the regular pattern still exists (i.e. every 16th channel seems to have a higher noise level). Mark Moran of EGI is our contact. Ph: (541)-687-7962
The amps have been shipped out and will be at EGI on the 25th. The RMA # is 0592. |
| Hardware, Software, Netstation, DIN | DIN information does not appear on the Netstation | COMPLETE. | Make sure that TTL option is set. On the Netstation machine, look in Panels menu option and choose the Digital Input option, a dialog box will open up. In this dialog box select the Source tab and click on the TTL button. | Carien has seen this problem before, she provided the tip. |
| FACS, Keck EEG, Camera | Need to have FACS quality data collection | IN PROGRESS. | Waiting for the final clamp set, to mount all the light. | After a meeeting with John, Alex and Max we decided collect the video in the IR part of the light spectrum and hence needed to order an IR transmission filter for further testing.
This task was delayed when the EGI amps at Keck need to be fixed due to noise issues. We have put together a new speaker box that houses the camera and the speakers. The extra camoflage seems to be posing a problem, as it is further reducing the amount of IR light reaching the camera. In the end we may need to increase the ambient light in the room. |
