Hummmmmm. That is interesting. So you installed a RICOH driver for the 1394 host controlled rather than using the "generic" driver provided by Microsoft. Is this controller by change a combo 1394a and "b" card?
BTW, 1000 microseconds is about the max. You can usually recover from an occasional 1200-1500 spike if you are using SafeMode 2. Anything over 2000 microseconds for a real-time processing system is killer. As an example, my system averages about 80 microseconds and I get the occasional spike to 350 or 400 microseconds. This is with several programs running at the same time. Also did you check to see if the Firewire network adapter was disabled? -Tim -----Original Message----- From: Mark Lunday [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Saturday, July 11, 2009 12:37 AM To: Tim Ellison; 'Flexradio' Subject: RE: [Flexradio] Venting about VAC 4 with SDR 1.18.1 (but I know I am somehow the problem) Thanks, Tim. I installed the DPCLAT tool. I am seeing consistent 1000 micro-sec latency on the DPCLAT tool. Oh, there are a few drops to 500 microseconds, and a few spikes of 16000 microseconds or greater. I have disabled everything I can think of in the Device manager, without impairing the machine: * Wireless network card (even tried the LAN card) - no change * Tablet pen input * Other USB controllers, except for the one with the mouse and the one with the keyboard * Internal computer sound card * Any other human interface devices not in use I also took a look at the services which are running. I cannot find any which would still affect the machine. Antivirus is off...Vista search indexer is off. I am running Windows Basic for display, not Aero glass for Vista. CPU shows about 11% utilization, 850MB out of 2 GB of memory in use. Interesting test - when I unplug the firewire connection, the latency drops WAY down, to about 50 microseconds...with only a spike of 1000 microseconds every 5 seconds or so. As soon as the firewire cable goes back in, we go back up to 1000 microseconds again. The driver is dated June 2006, that was just before gold code of Vista came out. I checked (RICOH OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller) and the installed version looks like the latest one available: http://www.pcpitstop.com/drivers/download/RICOH~OHCI~Compliant~IEEE~1394~Hos t~Controller.html So we have met the enemy which is causing the latency, and it is US. The firewire connection is causing a latency which is affecting the performance of the firewire connection. How about that! Talk about going in circles... I don't suppose there is anything I can do at this point.... Mark Lunday WD4ELG [email protected] http://wd4elg.net -----Original Message----- From: Tim Ellison [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, July 10, 2009 9:42 PM To: Mark Lunday; Flexradio Subject: RE: [Flexradio] Venting about VAC 4 with SDR 1.18.1 (but I know I am somehow the problem) Have you tried resetting the database. With all your crashes, it could be corrupted. WSJT will change around the soundcard device numbers when soundcards are re-recognized. It is one of the most difficult soundcard programs to get setup and working right. I highly recommend that you start with a much simpler configuration and get things working before going on to the more advanced configurations. You need to divide and conquer. Start out without doing any digital setup and get RX stable first. If you can not get past this step, trying a more complex configuration will be futile. So, reset your database. Set the sampling rate to 96 KHz, the buffer to 2048. Make sure the Firewire driver is set for the same buffer size and verify that you are using SafeMode1. Do *not* change any other parameters in the database. There is a program or something on that machine that is probably interfering with the real-time operation of your computer. You need to run the DPC checker all the time to see what you computer is doing - before starting PowerSDR and after. I suspect the freezes are the result of a long duration DPC. Use DPCLAT to monitor this condition. http://kc.flex-radio.com/KnowledgebaseArticle50058.aspx Run this for a while and record the DPC max and average times in microseconds. The KVM switch might be a problem, but I use one from BlackBox and I do not have any problems with it. -Tim -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mark Lunday Sent: Friday, July 10, 2009 9:08 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [Flexradio] Venting about VAC 4 with SDR 1.18.1 (but I know I am somehow the problem) OK, it's Friday, I have been doing computer work all week. Maybe I need a break, because I am out of patience. I realized something tonight: SDR 1.18.1 is a VERY stable product. You guys and gals over at Flex are amazing people. You must have infinite patience. I see now that your time is not spent on Flex Radio, it is spent troubleshooting Windows garbage and PC issues. I wish I could get XP to load on this laptop, but that's another story since XP does not recognize the disk.moving along.. In my case, I know it's probably me, but I am having a helluva time with VAC. It causes SDR 1.18.1 to crash 50% of the time, if not at first then after 5 minutes. After crashing, I have to reboot F3K AND unplug/replug in the Firewire connection to get SDR running again with F3K. After reboot, the VAC settings in SDR are not where I had them last. <SAGA THIS EVENING> I had WSJT working last night, now it's not. No audio coming through since I got CW skimmer working. MixW 2.18 was working last night, now it's not. No audio coming through since I got CW skimmer working. OK, recheck everything: CW Skimmer, set VAC to Windows-WDM-KS, Direct I/Q to VAC. MixW and WSJT, set VAC to MME, NO direct I/Q to VAC. RATS! SDR 1.18.1 crash. Restart. Cannot see F3K. Unplug firewire, restart F3K, plug firewire back in. Still not working. Reboot and try again. OK, SDR 1.18.1 working again. Let's check VAC. Wait, wrong setting in SDR for VAC for working with MixW, needs to be MME, how did it get to Windows-WDM-KS? Why is Direct I/Q to VAC checked? Those are CW skimmer settings. Must have been the last SDR crash. OK, let's start MixW. OK, running. Hey cool..wait, why did the SDR panadapter just freeze? RATS! SDR 1.18.1 crash. Restart. Cannot see F3K. Unplug firewire, restart F3K, plug firewire back in. Cool, it's working. No need for reboot. Let's launch MixW again. Nothing showing on the screen. Check MixW sound card settings, everything correct (Line 2 INPUT, Line 1 OUTPUT). Wait, VAC is disabled. Why is that? Click on VAC. RATS! SDR 1.18.1 crash. Restart. Cannot see F3K. Unplug firewire, restart F3K, plug firewire back in. Still not working. Reboot and try again. OK, SDR 1.18.1 working again. SDR options. MME, ok. Line 1 should be input.wait why is my microphone input? Change to Line 1. Line 2 output, check. Check MixW, everything check. OK, let's click on that VAC button. YIPPEE no crash! But nothing showing on MixW? Oh, we're in USB. I have the "DIGI recognized as USB" check in SDR, but MixW still sends USB command when going to PSK. OK, click on DIGI-U. OK! Now I see audio coming out on MixW! Finally. That was challenging. But I got it and.what? Panadapter screen froze? Not even 30 seconds! RATS! SDR 1.18.1 crash. Restart. Cannot see F3K. Unplug firewire, restart F3K, plug firewire back in. Still not working. Reboot and try again. <END SAGA> Holy crap, I have more sticky note reminders on my wall for shortcuts, I cannot even see the wall anymore. OK ladies and gentlemen, I KNOW I am part of the problem here. This is NOT an SDR issue. But I don't know what/why I am doing wrong. I am making this harder than it has to be. Or.there is a very simply solution. Something just occurred to me - I am using a KVM switch, and constantly going back and forth between the two PC's.the one with SDR and the other with all the logging and other programs (not connected to the rig in ay way). Could the KVM switch (which switches over the keyboard and the mouse) be part of the problem? IRQ 18 is the firewire, that is the only one on 18 (I triple checked). Mark Lunday WD4ELG <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] <http://wd4elg.net> http://wd4elg.net _______________________________________________ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List [email protected] http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flex-radio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/ Message delivered to [email protected] _______________________________________________ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List [email protected] http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ Knowledge Base: http://kc.flex-radio.com/ Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com/ Message delivered to [email protected]
