From: Rose Disher <disherr@centocor.com>
  To  : rasmb@bbri.org
  Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 16:35:42 -0500

Re: Help wanted with a serious XL-A data communication failure

I agree with your assessment that your problem may lie in the XLA itself. 
It may even be age-related.  We have an older XLA (from the days when
Beckman still rated them to run preparative rotors), are using the 4-place
rotor, and have not upgraded to the 4.0 software yet.  We do a brief
low-speed leak test run prior to each analytical run, and we loose the
leak test data as many times as we get it.  The analytical run is almost
always fine, although we occasionally loose a random scan of one cell
within a run.  We have tried various instrument, software, and methodology
solutions, and nothing fixes the problem.  Our service representative
checks out something new every time he comes out for a PM, and nothing
seems to make our problem go away.  Fortunately, our communication problem
is not as serious as yours, and we can still get data.  We are hoping to
get approval for an XLI in the next couple of years, and the presence of a
glich in the system strenghtens our position when we justify it to the
beancounters in Accounting.