I know; may be time to upgrade to WinCNC.

Or you could just buy a radio !

Quote from: noboost4you on December 02, 2011, 10:14:21 AM

I know; may be time to upgrade to WinCNC.

Or you could just buy a radio !

For the amount of money to purchase WinCNC, I could equip the shop with surround sound!

I tolerated it long enough. In today's day and age, I need the multitasking capabilities. I may also upgrade to that new fangled CD player all the kids are talking about these days.

" I tolerated it long enough. In today's day and age, I need the multitasking capabilities. "

YEP  GBS for sure (;-)

Good thing you have not bought a modern $100,000 machine center lately as they don't do EMAIL or Have radios built in (;-).

(;-) TP

" I tolerated it long enough. In today's day and age, I need the multitasking capabilities. "

YEP  GBS for sure (;-)

Good thing you have not bought a modern $100,000 machine center lately as they don't do EMAIL or Have radios built in (;-).

(;-) TP

Nah, just a 27 year old doing quarter million dollars in sales part-time from home. Life's rough, I know.

I need that extra time for my tunes and toys!

just a basic question on maintenance.  But have you cleaned the dust out of the computer?

8 out of 10 times a computer freeze in itself is due to thermal issues.  Have you checked to make sure all fans are running?  Heat sinks are not clogged?

I was working with a client that had mach3 internet, skype ect all running.  he kept telling me that mach would randomly lock up.  (smooth stepper based).

he lived in a 3rd world country so "SEEING" the machine was a no go.  After DAYS of skype chatting, I finally got ALL the information....... it would seem that when his computer screensaver came on, mach3 would freeze when he wiggled the mouse.

I try very hard to stress to people, the computer is NOT a desktop computer.  It is a cnc control.
Windows updates, screen savers, power management, internet, antivirus all make changes to the windows environment.  That is the LAST THING YOU WANT!

Now Im not going to lie, I have some computers with tons of programs installed on them.  They are my DIAGNOSTIC computers.  I would never run a production environment with them.  More along the lines of getting everything to work to build an XML file or test a file.

Good luck with yours!

just a basic question on maintenance.  But have you cleaned the dust out of the computer?

Yes, quite often. This is also the 2nd computer I've used in the shop, but unfortunately continues to freeze.

8 out of 10 times a computer freeze in itself is due to thermal issues.  Have you checked to make sure all fans are running?  Heat sinks are not clogged?

Yes, when cleaning out the dust from above.

I was working with a client that had mach3 internet, skype ect all running.  he kept telling me that mach would randomly lock up.  (smooth stepper based).

he lived in a 3rd world country so "SEEING" the machine was a no go.  After DAYS of skype chatting, I finally got ALL the information....... it would seem that when his computer screensaver came on, mach3 would freeze when he wiggled the mouse.

I try very hard to stress to people, the computer is NOT a desktop computer.  It is a cnc control.
Windows updates, screen savers, power management, internet, antivirus all make changes to the windows environment.  That is the LAST THING YOU WANT!

Now Im not going to lie, I have some computers with tons of programs installed on them.  They are my DIAGNOSTIC computers.  I would never run a production environment with them.  More along the lines of getting everything to work to build an XML file or test a file.

Good luck with yours!

I'm not looking to play Warcraft on the computer when running the machine. One would think streaming music in the background is a mindless task that Mach3 could handle as it does 95% of the time. It's that other 5% that bites ya!

One would think streaming music in the background is a mindless task that Mach3 could handle as it does 95% of the time. It's that other 5% that bites ya!

Try programming an application to output a steady stream of pulses, while handling another such as decoding a MP3 file - firing that into a sound card and maybe other tasks. Its a bit like trying to sing a song and have a conversation with someone at the same time....it's no easy task..
One thing for sure is its amazing that Mach is working as well as it does for 95% of the time.

Mach3 PC on my mill only controlls the mill - I don't even use the ethernet port and it's not glitched in 2-3 years.
Industrial machine controls do one thing - control the machine for a good reason.

Save yourself a whole load of problems - broken tools, scrap parts and torn out hair - get another PC for the music and internet ;-)

Same problem here. Right now I'm thinking of buying a new PC.

Did I read this right?  Are you on the internet with an XP machine?  I was under the impression that XP was no longer supported by Microsoft, so any new security issues found would never be rectified.  So none of my XP machines are on the internet.  They are all dedicated and have nothing on them except Mach.  They are all networked with a cable and all programming is done on a central computer and pushed out to each unit.

Why not a 32 bit Windows 7 machine from Tiger Direct?  They are only a few hundred bucks!

Why not stream music from your phone into your earbuds?

At any rate, do whatever it takes to make your machine safe and profitable.  Ruining material because your machine locks up because the computer can't handle all the tasks is bad news.  With all that ruined material you could have bought yourself a second dedicated computer!

And don't forget about picking up the spare monitors and keyboards at yard sales!  I have picked up monitors for $1!