Jumps in hi res data 27mar13
27mar13 spectral channel jumps (top)
p2787 (Joanna) had trouble with one of her scans
on 27mar13. The scan had a large number of pfb overflows.
The problem was:
- The file with the problem: p2787.20130327.B1726-00.b1s1g0.00200.fits
- The PFB overflows were reported in
polB. Looking at the data, there were also jumps in polA (just
not as large).
- The mock setup was
- 64 channels, full stokes, 256 usec sampling, using lbw.
- 170MHz clock with 85 MHz bandwidth (divide by 2 in the
digital filter).
- When the digital filter is used (to reduce the bandwidth)
we have gotten these jumps in the data with higher clock
rates.
- The problem has to do with the digital filter. When the
full bandwidth is used, the jumps never occur.
The first figure over plots the
spectra from the first 3 rows of the file (.pdf):
- top frame: PolA spectra
- each row had been offset by 8000 counts
- there are 3905 spectra in each row
- Bottom frame: PolB spectrra
- The jumps occurred more often in polB
The dynamic spectra show freq vs
time for the first 3 rows (polB) (.gif):
- The bright dots are the jumps
processing:
x101/130327/p2787_Joanna_pfb.pro
28mar13: running the diagnostics:
The rdComp diagnostic was run on 28mar13 (see
test results)
. This test:
- Uses digitally generated noise (in place of the A/D input).
This data is the same in each spectrometer.
- For each box the signal is processed by the fpga code and then
sent to the first spectrometer (pdevs1).
- Each sample from all the spectrometers is compared with the
sample from the first spectrometer. If any data value does not
match, then that data is flagged as an error.
Any jumps in the data in one fpga will get flagged as errors.
Normally we see the difference as a single bit flipping.
Test results:
- The test was run on all 14 spectrometers (group 0 and group
1).
- Clock rates of 172.032, 170.00, 165.00, and 160 MHz were used
- Intermittent problems occurred at 172.032,170, and 165
MHz.
- 160 MHz never failed.
- many of the failures included the box :b1s1g0 that gave p2787
problems.
processing:
x101/130328/mockdiag.pro
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