[Dx4win] CPU Usage

[K9RBorowski]

FYI, Over time with upgrades to the PC I have dedicated to DX4WIN and
running the radio station with two transceivers, PSK31, PTT, RTTY with
Kam-Plus, DCU-1 Hygain rotator control, VHF packet, etc. I've seen various
functions slow down or pause at times. The PC is a AMD K6-2 500 with 96Mb.
of PC100 Ram. At first, somewhere around the upgrade to version 5, I decided
to go through the PC and insure that all the cooling fans were running and
blew al the dust out of the entire case using compressed air. That seemed to
make a difference but I still noticed some slowdowns at times, but not as
frequent. Upon upgrading to version 5.01, 5.02, 6.01, things remained
essentially the same but upgrades to versions 6.02, 6.03, and especially
6.04 caused unacceptable performance problems. Thinking all the while it may
be the newer versions of DX4WIN requiring more memory, I added more memory
to go from 96Mb. to 160 Mb. (2 new 64Mb. PC100 memory modules along with one
of the original 32Mb.units.) [mainboard has 3 memory slots] This,
surprisingly had little effect on performance! I'm now wondering if the
500MHz. CPU running on a 100 Hz. Bus configuration was enough? When I first
started using DX4WIN I ran it on an old 286 with 4 MB. of RAM. Of course
that was nearly 15 years ago and the program did not have nearly a many
features as it does today.
A weak moment and a stroke of good luck found me purchasing all that I
needed to replace this relic PC with a modern system, as I needed to upgrade
my wife's PC here also. I've been avoiding upgrading my station control PC
as I needed the 8 COM ports and the old PC had all ISA Bus cards but I bit
the bullet and found a PCI card with 8 serial ports that uses a single IRQ
and assigned each port a separate address and from that time, it was full
steam ahead. I've now got an AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ Dual Core Processor
(3.2GHZ) with 2GB. DDR2 -667 memory, a WD SATA 7200RPM HDD,  600 Watt Power
Supply in an EMI shielded case, plus the other necessities. Without dragging
this on any further, this PC runs like a scared rabbit with DX4WIN and all 8
serial ports controlling everything the old PC was controlling. I believe it
was a combination of things causing the problems I was seeing with the 11
year old PC I was previously using. I hope someone benefits from this read.
73, -=Rog-K9RB=-

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Erkki Heikkinen" <erkki.heikkinen at pp.inet.fi>
To: <dx4win at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Tuesday, March 04, 2008 1:14 AM
Subject: RE: [Dx4win] CPU Usage


> Bernie,
>
> It happens here, too. If I am transmitting RTTY when the CW spot comes,
> it will slow down dramatically and possibly spoil the QSO. Otherwise I
> have not noticed any ill effects.
>
> 73 Erkki OH2BF
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: dx4win-bounces at mailman.qth.net
> > [mailto:dx4win-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of wo2n
> > Sent: 4. maaliskuuta 2008 1:02
> > To: dx4win at mailman.qth.net
> > Subject: [Dx4win] CPU Usage
> >
> >
> > Is it normal for CW Announce to use 75/85% of CPU Usage, when
> > a spot is
> > coming in???
> > 73, Tnx Bernie/WO2N.>
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Dx4win mailing list
> > Dx4win at mailman.qth.net http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/dx4win
> >
>
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