HP 6890 External Device not ready

Hello lperry ,

The document below explains what that error is, essentially it could be that an ALS is not ready for injection, or some other piece of hardware connected to the GC.

6890 GC Not Ready Messages (agilent.com) (bottom of page 9).

Some solutions that could be related to your case could be found on thieAgilent Community post as well, although the HW and SW are different. Essentially, if you have something connected to the remote connection at the back, it could be that this is what is causing the issue. As far as I understand, you are saying it is not the case. Check the spade lugs of the remote connection to see if anything is touching in there as well.

7890B/ALS/FID will not inject due to "External Device Not Ready" - what should I check? - Forum - Gas Chromatography - Agilent Community

Hi, I checked lugs and don't see anything touching. This is a very old GC, and this is the first time we are plugging anything into the remote connection. I did connect my hydrogen sensor back to it, and everything with the sensor seems to be working right now, but it still says "external device not ready" even though it is ready and working. The GC still works, and we are able to run on it, but it should say "ready for injection."

Hi, I checked lugs and don't see anything touching. This is a very old GC, and this is the first time we are plugging anything into the remote connection. I did connect my hydrogen sensor back to it, and everything with the sensor seems to be working right now, but it still says "external device not ready" even though it is ready and working. The GC still works, and we are able to run on it, but it should say "ready for injection."

I tried that. We use OpenLab Ezchrom.

Hello lperry ,

You could try and reconfigure the instrument within the Software. What software are you using?

Oh, yes you did, and it's written in the original post too. Sorry about that.

What other hardware do you have on the GC? Are you using liquid autosamplers, mass spectrometry detectors? If so, do they appear to be ready?

No other hardware. It's used for manual shots only. I think the connection is just faulty. Can that whole connection piece be replaced? Of course it's connected to the main board. :/

Yes, I've power cycled it several times.

Okay, thank you!

Hello lperry ,

Assuming you have not tried power cycling (SW, PC and GC) yet, you can try that. Sometimes power cycling works to clear our some errors.

Otherwise, the connection can be replaced and it is one of the boards. You can get assistance with that by contacting your local Agilent Team if needed.