Machine pausing randomly

[michaelthomas]

I just got my machine up and running today on Mach 3 demo.  Most of the time it seems to run fine, but periodically it will pause for a half second or so while running.  It never happens in the same spot, and I am definitely not near the acceleration or speed limits of my steppers to make them lose steps.  The program just pauses for a bit (along with the DRO's), then resumes.  No lost steps measured.

Any ideas? 

[Tweakie.CNC]

Sounds like your computer catching up with it's multi-tasking.
PC's dedicated to running Mach (and nothing else) are always best.
A PC polls things such as USB, Print que, Updates, etc etc and this can cause a hickup in the smooth running of Mach. Removing all these things usually solves the problem.

Tweakie.

[Greolt]

What Tweakie said is correct,

however before doing all that, try turning off the toolpath view (settings page)

See if that makes a difference.

Greg

[michaelthomas]

Thanks for the suggestions.  The computer I'm using is dedicated to Mach, meaning I don't use it for anything else, but it had a lot of other crap on in.  I got rid of everything but Mach and disabled all but the necessary processes and so far all has been well.  I wasn't able to turn off the toolpath view.....cause I just couldn't find what you were referring to.  Could you be a bit more specific?

Thanks again.

[Greolt]

It is on the diagnostics page (not settings, sorry)

Just above the reset button.

Greg

[angel tech]

did you just delte the ou

Thanks for the suggestions.  The computer I'm using is dedicated to Mach, meaning I don't use it for anything else, but it had a lot of other crap on in.  I got rid of everything but Mach and disabled all but the necessary processes and so far all has been well.  I wasn't able to turn off the toolpath view.....cause I just couldn't find what you were referring to.  Could you be a bit more specific?

Thanks again.

did you delete the other programs, or format the drive and re-install windows and Mach3.

[michaelthomas]

I uninstalled all other programs and then disabled everything unnecessary in Task Manager.  Although everything is seemingly working OK.....the whole setup is very marginal.  Pretty much half of what the stated minimum requirements request.  256MB ram and 500MHZ processor or so.  I guess I'm surprised it even runs at all.  After running a 5 minute program with a bunch of interpolated holes and pockets.....returning to zero yields about a .005" loss every time.  Before I get too wrapped up in chasing my tail, I'm going to get a better computer and proceed from there.  In 3 axis simultaneous moves .....the CPU usage is very close to 100%.  I thought it was a better computer than it is.