[hpsdr] Optimising Dell PC for PowerSDR

[Glenn Thomas]

Hi Luke!

I've had similar problems with my HP laptop and a home-integrated 
Asus MOBO system, both running XPsp2. The XP "performance monitor" 
applet can give CPU, disk and page fault measurements. Unfortunately, 
it doesn't tell you what programs are responsible for system loading. 
The XP "Windows Task Manager" display (launched by ctrl-alt-del) can 
give you CPU usage by process, so you might be able to spot any 
CPU-hogs that impact your system performance.

My fixes included some of the following steps:

1. Kill off whichever XP "services" you don't need. You probably 
don't need a lot of them and they do gobble CPU and disk time. 
Indexing is perhaps the worst.

2. Some anti-virus programs behave in a most uncivilized manner by 
glomming onto the CPU & disk at elevated process priority, thus 
preventing anything else (like SDR s/w) from getting much CPU time. 
If feasible, consider killing off your a/v program and see if that 
helps. Of course, with no a/v running, you likely won't want to be 
doing any e-mail... My main SDR computer is NEVER on the net and so 
has no need for a/v or firewall.

3. I've noticed that XP occasionally, for no apparent reason, wants 
to do a LOT of page swapping. It doesn't seem to matter if anything 
is running or even launched. I'm not sure how to deal with this issue 
because I don't know why or where XP insists on having a page fault 
storm. The only answer I've found has been to pile on the RAM and 
hope that XP makes appropriate use of it to reduce the probability of 
a page fault. 750MB of RAM seems to be affected by this more than I 
would like. 1GB of RAM has been marginally successful in reducing the 
effect and frequency of page fault storms while not completely 
eliminating them. It did stop the dropouts though - mostly.

Good luck!

73 de Glenn wb6w

At 06:42 AM 8/5/2010, you wrote:
>***** High Performance Software Defined Radio Discussion List *****
>
>While I'm on the blower, I'll ask about the situation where I am sometimes
>experiencing dropouts with PowerSDR.
>Hardware is Magister/Mercury/Penelope. Firmware was upgraded to the latest
>on the SVN last month.
>PC is a Dell Optiplex GX-620 with a P4/3GHz processor and 1GB RAM. Using
>onboard video. (I have a video card to try in the morning to see if that
>helps.) Using PowerSDR v 1.19, but no better than when using 1.10.
>I have tried the different sampling rates in the audio setting, but no
>noticeable improvement on 48 kHz over 96 or 192 kHz.
>The CPU usage seems to remain below 50%, even when the dropouts occur.
>On phone modes, the quality is quite ok, with very few pops.
>On CW it is unacceptable, the dropouts are really distracting.
>Turning off the Panadaptor seems to allow clean operation - but then it is
>like going back to operating a 20th Century radio!
>I like to run Ham Radio Deluxe, for the excellent logging facility and
>other operating aids.
>Reading FAQ on the Flex Radio site, it refers to issues with HP and Dell
>machines.
>Does anyone have some tips to address the Dellian roadblocks and optimise
>what I have?
>I would rather not just purchase more PC grunt and end up with yet another
>obsolescent item hanging around the shack.
>I don't particularly like computers - they are just a tool to me - I just
>want to sharpen this one.
>Thanks,
>Luke VK3HJ
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