Acuson 128XP/10 is not booting

I will need to know a few more details about the system to accurately help troubleshoot your problem. Firstly, do you know what revision level the system is? If you are unable to use the machine right now, then we probably can't find out without opening the top panel on the system and look at the OC3 board, then checking the SYSCON chips for the revision number (it will be something like 30.121).

Another thing will be to find out what your voltage conversion is like. Do you use 115vac? Or is it 230vac? If so, do you have a power converter, or an uninterruptible power supply/power conditioner?

I have a forum post that shows the 7-segment LED where any power errors would be reported. I would look at that the next time you boot up the system and see if any numbers are showing. The link to the picture is here: 7-Segment LED

It might be something to do with your OC3, if its freezing the system up in "power on diagnostics" then that would point to either SYSCON or OC3.

The "space bar" or "I" key will bypass power on diagnostics in the morning, I suppose I should have put that somewhere on the forums, sorry.

One thing you can try is to run the Periodic Maintenance test using the manual diagnostic entry, since you have the OCWARE chips on your OC3.

To do this, you will need to turn the system on while holding the "TEST" key, it is located underneath the monitor, behind the little white door that swings up. If the machine is already on, press "RESET" once, then hold the "TEST" key, until you see something like "Acuson 128...". You will need to type in the following EXACTLY as it's shown except for the "press Return" which means.. press the Return key:

S10BFBA      (press Return)
01                (press Return)
G262B600    (press Return)

The system should make some noises and a new screen should come up with the end result being a dollar symbol ($) that is basically your command line. Type "PM" and press "Return". This should start the system on a half hour to an hour diagnostic that will test pretty much everything it can in the system. At the end of the diagnostic it will tell you how many tests failed. To see which ones failed, type "STAT" and press "Return". Then list which tests failed in the forum and I will review.

Hope this helps.

Well, definitely strange to say the least. It is possible that low-voltage batteries could interfere with the power on diagnostics, I just haven't come across that before.

I think observing the boot time is a good idea, thats one of the joys of troubleshooting -- keep turning it on until it fails again, then go from there. Fortunately there's only so much that can go wrong with the 128XP, and they're fairly inexpensive to fix.

If you do have any other issues, try the "PM" test again and if nothing fails you can try running the "NI" test, which stands for Non-Interactive, it takes longer than the "PM" test, but it will scan the system on a deeper level.

Same as the PM test, only, instead of typing "PM", type "NI" and press Return.

Let me know what it says when it's done.

Dear Todd,
Following our phone conversation today our technician and I tried to do some things. We did followings:
1) Turned on the machine and pressed SHIFT+CODE+V+TEST. Result- nothing happened, machine did not boot. Screen stayed gray without © ACUSON .... screen. We waited for about 30 minutes, nothing came out to the screen and we turned the machine off. While machine was not booting all the 9 diodes on the boards stayed ON. The machine did not react to pressing of any buttons, including  RESET button at the first board at the back side of the machine.
2) We lifted the boards, except CSI, CED, CVC, IC, CMB, OC. And then we turned on the machine.  Result - no booting! Waited 30 minutes  - no result.
3) Technician checked the all the power supplies (opened the top part of the machine as a book). He said that all the voltages, including 5V  was fine.
4) Technician once more checked the 2 batteries on CVC board - they were fine, showed 3,6V.
After all those actions we lost our spirit and started wrapping up. Suddenly © Acuson... came on on the screen,  9 red diodes on the boards started turning off and booting started - after 5-6 minutes the machine was ready to work. After that we turned off the machine, and turned on again, machine immediately started booting. SHIFT, SPACE or V buttons worked when the machine was booting - pressing one of these buttons just bypassed the testing.  We turned the machine off, closed top lids, next time we turned it on - we waited nearly 1 hour - but nothing happened - the screen stayed gray without any title.

So, after all happened our technician suspected that there might be problems in OC3 board.
We urgently need your help, there are no ultrasound machines in the hospital know. Everybody in the hospital is sick and tired of constant problems with Acuson machine. Our technician suspects that one of the chips in OC 3 board doesn't work, but he doesn't which one exactly. if you could tell us what exactly the problem  could be caused by, we have the opportunity to order the spare part in USA through the acquaintance who is flying to USA on Jan 22 for one week.
Please advise!!!