From time to time, the CCD spectrometer may block so that the spectrum line will not move anymore during acquisitions. In such a case, the user will not have any choice but closing OOIBase32. However, the application most likely will stay in memory and will refuse to be killed from the Windows Task Manager. Here is a quick tutorial describing how solve this problem and quickly start over your measurements.

When the spectrometer is blocked, once OOIBase32 is closed and restarted, the display will most likely look like this:

This flat and fixed line is specific of the spectrometer not being properly recognised by the computer.

When OOIBase32 is closed, Windows Task Manager (called by Crtl+Alt+Del) should show the software task process but it should be impossible to manually end this process.

1) Close all the applications and restart the computer

2) Go to the Control Panel and double click on the System icon

3) Click on "Device Manager" in the tab "Hardware". Search for Ocean Optics Devices in the list, right-click and choose "Update Driver"

4) In the Hardware Update Wizard, tick "Install from a list or specific location" and then tick "Don't search, I will choose the driver to install"

5) Click on "Have Disk" and try to locate the driver called "ooi_usb.inf" that should normally be in C:\WINDOWS. The driver should reinstall.

6) If everything goes well, the following window should appear:

7) Restart the computer and open OOIBase32. the softwre should be unblocked and you should see the red spectrum line moving

Here should normally finish this tutorial but if ever those steps were not sufficient...

(8) ...If ever those steps were not sufficient and if the spectrometer is located quite far from the computer (via several USB wires), you will need to unplug the optic fibre and the controller wire from the spectrometer, unplug the USB wire and re-connect the spectrometer directly on a USB plug of the computer

(9) You might see a warning message concerning the USB device... ignore it, and restart this tutorial from the begining (point 1).

(10) Replug your spectrometer at its original location and start OOIbase32... you should be done now and the interface should look like in point 7)... otherwise, call someone from the Cryobench team.