Tools for the network, Windows and protocol questions SCADA engineers meet every day — written so that an engineer without an IT background can diagnose the common problems and escalate the rest with evidence.
Start with the Troubleshooting & Escalation Assistant, read command outputs with the Command Output Explainer, look up error and event codes, check addressing, registers, fibre links, SNMP counters and certificates, and convert Modbus and IEC 104 values. Everything runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded.
Pick the symptom — no communication, IEC 104 drops, wrong time, slow workstation, logon problems, disk full, GOOSE not received — answer a few questions, and get the likely cause, the actions, the tool to use and a ready escalation ticket with the evidence to attach.
Paste the output of ipconfig /all, route print, arp -a, ping, tracert, netstat -ano, w32tm or nslookup and get it explained in plain language with the problems flagged: duplicate and link-local addresses, wrong gateways, which route is used, blocked ports, unsynchronised clocks.
Run the read-only AJ Collector PowerShell script on a SCADA server or HMI — no installation — and open its report: services and crashes, events, boot and logon delays, time, domain, network, listening ports against your approved list, firewall, accounts, security baseline, certificates; baseline comparison and anonymised copy.
Meaning, typical causes on SCADA systems and what to check for Windows error codes (10060, 10061, 0x80070005, 1789 …) and event IDs (7031, 1129, 5719, 4625, DCOM 10016 …), covering network, time, domain logon, services, disks, DCOM/OPC DA and TLS.
Can my laptop talk to the IED? Enter both IP addresses, masks and gateways: the assistant checks the addressing from both sides and explains in plain language whether they can talk directly, only through a router or not at all, finds one-way mask mismatches, duplicates and bad gateways, and suggests a working laptop address.
Power budget of 100BASE-FX/LX10 and 1000BASE-SX/LX/LX10/ZX transceivers against fibre, connector and splice loss (TIA-568.3-D) with a safety margin, the IEEE 802.3 reach limit for OS2 and OM1–OM4 fibre, receiver overload and maximum link length.
Paste or open the IP address list of a substation or SCADA network: finds duplicate IPs, MACs and names, network or broadcast addresses, gateways outside their subnet, mixed masks per VLAN and overlapping subnets, with line numbers and CSV export.
Paste a MAC address or a frame from Wireshark: GOOSE, SV, PTP, PRP/HSR, MRP, spanning tree or IP multicast recognised; VLAN, priority, EtherType, APPID and the GOOSE/SV fields decoded and checked against IEC 61850; manufacturer from the IEEE OUI file.
Two Modbus registers to float or 32-bit integer in all four byte orders, register notation to protocol address, IEC 104 normalised and short-float values, the CP56Time2a time tag, and IEC 104 / IEC 61850 quality bits.
Check k, w and the timers t0–t3 of an IEC 104 link against the standard's rules (w ≤ 2/3 k, t2 < t1, ranges) and against the round-trip time and bit rate of slow, radio or satellite links.
Character time, Modbus RTU t1.5/t3.5 gaps, request and response times and the polling cycle for N devices on RS-485, radio or WAN links, compared with the required SCADA scan time.
Decode OIDs of the common MIBs, paste an snmpwalk from a switch for a port table with down links, CRC errors, duplex mismatches and spanning-tree changes, and check SNMPv3 security settings.
Open a certificate to see subject, issuer, expiry, key, signature, names and usages, with checks for expiry, weak algorithms, name mismatches, OPC UA ApplicationUri and chain order; SHA-1 thumbprint and SHA-256 fingerprint.
Open a Performance Monitor CSV from a SCADA server or HMI: CPU, memory, disk latency, free space, network and the busiest processes judged against stated thresholds, with memory-leak detection.
The networking, Windows, time and security knowledge that SCADA and commissioning engineers need to find communication faults themselves — IP addressing, routing, VLANs, multicast, ports, time synchronisation, SNMP, domains and certificates — explained without jargon.