Congratulations! I did the same thing with a similar single-core machine a few months ago, and had almost exactly the same experience.
I think the key is to start with a fresh machine - i.e., newly loaded O/S on blank disk. Then add just the stuff you need. My machine typically runs 15-25%, even with HRD (v5 beta) running and PSDR of course. Google Earth qso lookups add a bit too, but not worrisome. The display can freeze for a second or two during QRZ.com lookups. The only thing I've found so far that makes a noteworthy difference in CPU usage is the MultiRx. If it's processing two SSB signals at a time, CPU usage can get up to the 50% range. You can reduce the frames-per-second setting on the display to save some computer cycles at the cost of a slightly less smooth display. Have fun! Jack K3FIV Point Arena, CA On Fri, 2009-09-04 at 20:38 -0600, Michael Jones wrote: > The $165 machine showed up this afternoon. > > > > Here's a link where you can see the gory details, the bottom line is it's a > 3.2GHz P4, all the usual computer stuff, and includes an XP Pro license. > > > > http://www.surpluscomputers.com/348774/hp-dc7600-p4-3.2ghz-1gb.html > > > > They messed up and shipped me a 512M RAM unit instead of the 1GB that I > ordered - more later on this. > > > > The bottom line - it worked first time, like a champ! > > > > I put in a low-profile TI-chip firewire card (the system has two free PCI > slots and 1 PCIe-1 and 1 PCIe-8 slot - all low profile), applied the MS > firewire hotfix, installed the Flex driver, installed .Net 3.5 - and brought > up PowerSDR 1.19.1 svn 3345. > > > > And it worked. > > > > I'm running with smaller buffer sizes on both the driver and the audio > settings, and I can run with higher DSP buffers than I could on my Atom 330 > box. > > The standare Flex driver settings worked FB right out of the box. > > > > I tried my worst-case test of settings of turning on NR, both NB's, ANF, > everything, and there is no stuttering, just no problem at all. > > > > I also installed the other ham software that I want to use - Ham Radio > Deluxe - the current beta version. > > Running that, the HRD logger (which seems to be a resource hog) and DM780 > using VAC - everything runs just fine. > > My CPU usage percentage seems to hover between 18% and 30%. > > > > I set the CPU affinity to let PSDR have any CPU it wants, and on this box > I've set up all my other apps to only use CPU1. I don't know how necessary > or effective that is but I figured it can't hurt. And none of the other apps > locked down to the second CPU seem to care or be slow or laggy at all. > > > > Oh yeah, I also put in my USB VGA adapter so I can have two monitors. It is > a bit of a resource sink but it runs just fine. It generates a bunch of hash > on 17 meters but ferrites fixed that right up. > > > > What surprised me was that with only 512M of RAM and all the above running - > plus Firefox with 5 or 6 tabs open - I still have 100M of RAM free and the > system isn't paging! They're going to send me the missing 512M stick. I > could probably get email up and running on it as well if I felt the urge. > > > > So I think that's pretty good. > > Cheap, easy - just what the doctor ordered. > > > > Best regards, > > > > Michael Jones W0STB > > > > _______________________________________________ > FlexRadio Systems Mailing List > FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz > 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 j...@3kitty.org > _______________________________________________ FlexRadio Systems Mailing List FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz 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 arch...@mail-archive.com
