[Lowfer] Blue Screen of Death Argo/Spectran

[Rye Gewalt]

Gary:

Thanks for the thoughts -- strange, but that CPU idea was tickling my back brain
earlier this afternoon too.  Yes, I have the motherboard manual and I also have
a brand new 125MHz pentium somewhere on the shelf and will finally get a chance
to use it.  It's a pity about those old chips.  Thanks for your offer of the CPU
anyway though -- that's what makes Ham radio nice.   ....the fact that we can
never seem to throw anything away probably remains a problem.   Need any 64K Ram
chips????

I have the machine stuffed with old 16MB memory sticks just to say I used them

Regards
Rye.


DTX wrote:

> Rye,
>
> I stopped using the Cyrix cpus many years ago when I discovered how poorly
> their Math Co-processor functions were implemented.  Can your motherboard
> support other CPUs?  Do you have the documentation to set the jumpers and
> such for the various clocks, multipliers and stuff?  If so, and you want to
> try to change the cpu, I have an Intel 90Mhz cpu sitting around here out of
> the motherboard (long since gone, don't know why the cpu didn't go with it
> ;-) that I could send you for a $1.10 postage.  On math intensive apps, it
> will run circles around the Cyrix, maybe 4 or 5 times better even at the
> lower clock speed.
>
> Gary WA6DTX
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Rye Gewalt
> To: lowfer
> Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2002 2:49 AM
> Subject: [Lowfer] Blue Screen of Death Argo/Spectran
>
> I wonder how much computer is required to make Spectran/Argo work well.  I
> know that both are computationally intensive and suspect I may be asking too
> much of my old 133MHz Cyrix machine (96K memory)  that I use for low
> frequency monitoring.
> Both ARGO and Spectran run great -- except when they crash to the dreaded
> "Blue Screen of Death" .  The blue screen error data seems arbitrary so
> there is no clue there and it's hard to reproduce the failures.  Sometimes
> the computer will run all night and other times it crashes just after I
> leave the room -- in true Murphy fashion.
> Here are some of my thoughts...
> 1   Thought it might be the Windows 95 so totally formatted disk and loaded
> new 98/ME into a system with just ARGO and Spectran.  Same results.
> 2.  Thought it might be video drivers (Stealth 2000 3D) and got current
> versions from web.  Same results.
> 3.  It may not be enough machine for the Job....  but it performs well on
> other stuff (but not so computationally intensive)
> I am using an old Plug and Play SoundBlaster 16 (CT2940) and wonder if it
> may be the problem.  I think I may stop at the local computer hack store and
> buy and new PCI card with all of the current drivers etc. since they seem to
> sell OEM Creative cards for about $30.  Creative calls the CT2940 a legacy
> card so maybe it's the problem.  I know that setting up some of the older
> cards was a real  pain with regard to interrupts and addressing.  I think
> that the new ones are more disciplined.
> Perhaps somebody else out there has worked this problem and might have some
> experience to share.  I do know that both ARGO and Spectran run great on my
> bigger machines -- so it's not a problem with the software.
> Otherwise I am having a great second season LFing and am finally starting to
> hear things.
> Regards All
> Rye K9LCJ
> Springfield, VA
>
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