I have ms ThermoXseries2, mostly working with sulfides and gold in it. For last two years signal for gold during ablation has become lower. No such problem with, for example, S or Fe or Ag. The same thing with solution. On tune U is lower than In. Li and Co is ok. Calibration on solution is ok, mass calibration and detector cross calibration also ok. Detector is new (2020).
One possibility is that the heavy atoms peak signals (Au, U) have shifted in comparison with the lighter elements (Fe, S, Ag) over time. The machine may be reading on the side of the heavy element peaks instead of right onto the top of the peak itself. If you can access one, try a gold standard (or any other very heavy element) to see if your peaks are read at the right place in the spectrum by the software. Another possibility is that one piece of the equipment is getting contaminated with deposits (gold plating?) and interferes with the reading of the heavy element peaks .
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