(Tone of comment...gentle, small smile on face, somewhat amused, had my
morning coffee...):
I read this particular reflector with some interest. It is very
active and some of the comments are quite useful. However, there is a
lot of air-time spent on DPC's, lock-ups, etc. One should realize that
the computer is a machine. Considering the sheer avalanche of operations
it processes, with line voltage fluctuations, solar coronal discharges,
CB operators, and so on, it is an astonishingly reliable
machine...however, like other mechanisms, it can occasionally make an
error, drop a bit, etc. My WIN7/32 and WIN7/64 machines both
occasionally freeze, but in the last 6 months I believe I have seen the
BSD once. I have had a "lock-up" on the order of perhaps 2 or 3 per week
on this machine (WIN7/32), which is often on 24/7. Usually these
lock-ups occur when pSDR is running along with the gamut of other
applications, and they seem to be associated with Windows Update or with
other demanding apps such as my AV software. I have never had a lock-up
during a QSO, except when I forget where the cursor focus is, and zap
something.
There is a very useful key combination, called "the Vulcan Death
Grip," which consists of pressing/holding CTRL-ALT-DEL for a moment to
bring up the Task Manager. Usually this will allow one to kill whatever
process is hanging the machine. It is probably good form to re-start the
Flex radio and pSDR under these circumstances, but so what? Nothing is
"broken" -- the computer did not throw a connecting rod, it just had a
momentary lapse. We all have them, and they are not necessarily a
symptom of serious problems. Pat it on the head, begin from the
beginning, and be happy.
The BSD is perhaps, but not necessarily, another matter. If
re-booting the computer doesn't fix it, then is the time to think a bit.
The last time I experienced a BSD I reloaded a bit-image of my
penultimate backup (I tend to be very paranoid about backups and make
them regularly). This cured the problem, telling me that whatever the
burp was that caused it was probably not a hardware failure, just an
errant extra-solar Dirac monopole that hit one of my memory chips.
A remark about bit-image backups -- the "restore" function for my
backup software force-loads a small Linux OS at boot, thus gaining the
use of what is probably the best but least-appreciated OS around. There
are several such backup/restore programs available, and the one I like
best is Macrium Reflect. The backup programs that come with Windows are
somewhat farcical, IMHO. The key to totally safe backup is to make a
total bit image of everything inside the mind of the computer. Backing
text and documents just doesn't hack it. On this machine, a full bit
image backup takes about 12 minutes for 40++ GB of contents. I do this
at least once a day, as evening shadows fall. It seems little enough
homage to pay the miraculous machine. I back onto either a 1 TB external
drive or a 64 GB memory stick, sometimes both. In this season of the
IRS, I am very careful to save and save and...
Hardware failures DO occur. In my case, it seems to be the hard
drives that go first. How sweet it is, to be able to replace the drive
and load a bit image backup onto the new drive in place of the
alternative of individually re-loading all the software and data files
that accumulate. BTDT. IMHO worth every penny one pays for backup devices!
73,
John Ragle -- W1ZI
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