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Struggling with Mach 3
« on: June 12, 2013, 07:19:35 AM »
HI,
Been running Mach 3 on my PC with my Denford Easimill for years with no real problems - suddenly I am struggling. The PC seems to become unresponsive to keyboard or mouse clicks now and then - there could be a couple of seconds pause between clicking on a command before it wakes up and switches screens or whatever. When running code it looks like the same thing is happening - the machine stops dead mid movement - sits for a second or maybe 5 secs, and then moves off again with a jolt.

Ran driver test last night and it reported pulsing too fast - dropped the speed one notch to the minimum - this seemed to sort it last night. Ran this morning and same problem - this time driver test reported too slow. I am assuming that this is a PC problem so went searching - used msconfig to switch off all start up items - still the same.

This machine is not on the web and is pretty much dedicated to Mach3 - I have Cut 2D on it and AutoCAD LT but these have been on for years with no issues.

Does anyone have any ideas I could try - something has changed somewhere - but what?

Ian

Offline olf20

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Re: Struggling with Mach 3
« Reply #1 on: June 12, 2013, 07:53:34 AM »
Other will chime in but depress control, Alt, Del at the same time
and see what the CPU usage is. That should guide you to what
might be causing the problem.
Hope this helps!
olf20 / Bob
Mach3, Atlas Knee Mill, 4th Axis, VcarvePro, ESS, Super PID.
Been Heating with corn since 1998
Re: Struggling with Mach 3
« Reply #2 on: June 12, 2013, 02:50:14 PM »
"Ctrl alt del" shows nothing running under processes except System Idle at 90+ which as I understand it is what you should expect.

With Mach running and driving the machine tool - Mach3.exe starts to score between 01 and 05 and there is the odd instance where explorer.exe scores 01 but other than that nothing changes.

Running the program with my hand on the table you can clearly feel the dead stops as the machine suddenly stops - there is nothing odd happening during one of these pauses as far as task manager is concerned - nothing suddenly starts up as far as I can see.

It is as if the PC hangs monetarily and the pulses to the stepper drivers stop - then after a short (variable) time 1 to maybe 10 secs max, it kicks off again. The watchdog doesn't kick in.....

I wonder about reinstalling Mach?

Ian
Re: Struggling with Mach 3
« Reply #3 on: June 13, 2013, 07:42:49 AM »
I have not had identical problems but what I found was that after ~4 years of running Mach3 on the same computer it developed "funnies". Since the computer was a little slow and I had picked up a faster computer I replaced it. Fresh install of Mach3 and all is well. I did have an initial problem with .066 so I went back to 032 or so and then it was all fine.
It may be just that windows or Mach3 gets clogged up and full of junk over the years and needs a good cleaning. Running only mach3 on the computer would certainly be better.

Mike
We never have the time or money to do it right the first time, but we somehow manage to do it twice and then spend the money to get it right.
Re: Struggling with Mach 3
« Reply #4 on: June 19, 2013, 03:17:54 PM »
Just a quick update - I looked at the optimisation info and did a couple of additional things - most significant one really was to "maintain the hard disk" - ran error checking and then defragmented the disk. Unfortunately I still have the problem. I have now installed CCleaner and removed a couple of progs that I have never used and then ran the registry clean up. Re-start - but I still have my periodic dead stop problem.

I think the next step may be to reinstall Mach 3 and see if that has an impact.

Ian