Display corruption on an ION8500

[narkshark]

I am working with a customer that has an ION8500v265 meter with strange characters display on the front screen. The two attached images show this.

Some thoughts I had about this after talking with some colleagues are that:

1) This may be a sign of a dieing meter.

2) I was able to reproduce these images by manually editing different items in the "Display Modules" folder in the meter using ION Setup. It would be worth having the customer look in there and see if what's on the front panel matches what is saved.

3) The event log of the meter could be looked at to see if there is any evidence to suggest that someone manually entered these readings.

4) Similar problems in the past on different meters were solved by flashing the same firmware on top of what was installed.

Are there some other explanations that might explain this strange screen output? Any input is welcome.

[VictorMarincus]

I guess that the attached pictures are taken to a meter on which you've modified the Display Modules.

I would recommend creating a Technical Support Ticket and attach the pictures from your customer's meter.

[narkshark]

The attached photos are from the customer's meter. I do not have an ION8500 meter to work with.

[VictorMarincus]

Then I would definetely check the Display Modules ... Perhaps someone changed the characters

[Robert_Lee]

Something to keep in mind that the ION meters do not use the same ASCII character set that the PC platforms use.  Beyond the standard letters, digits and standard punctuations, what the user enters through software may not appear identically on the front panel display of the ION devices.  There are only a few characters above ASCII 128 are supported by the ION devices.

Also when using these special characters, older versions of ION Setup had issues programming those registers which have been fixed in the recent versions available on Box so if using ION Setup to program the displays, it is recommended to get the latest version prior to programming these devices using these characters (ex. ç or è).

[narkshark]

A few times in the past I have had a problem with graphical artifacting on a desktop computer, and seeing this meter reminded me of that but as you say, I am suspicious.

Attached is an example of why I thought there might be some kind of software corruption happening based on my experience in the past. This was a screen capture of Windows 7 trying to load with a bad video card.