Status of the Test System of the MWPC for the LHCb Muon System

This document describes the apparatus and the procedure used to test the 1368 multi wire proportional chambers (MWPC) after front-end assembly for the LHCb muon system. Given a fully equipped chamber, this system is able to diagnose every channel through an analysis of front-end output drivers and noise rate versus threshold response. In addition, it verifies if the noise rate at the operational threshold is within appropriate limits. Aiming at an automatic, fast and user-friendly system for mass production tests of MWPC, the project has foreseen as well electronic identification of every chamber and front-end board, and data archiving in such a way to make it available to the experiment control system (ECS). The results obtained on about 130 chambers tested are described.