I have been trying to run Mach2 and 3 on a Dell Inspiron laptop 1ghz P3(mobile) and an Intel P4 1.7ghz desktop system.
Both are running winXP Pro, and stripped down according to the optimization documents.

In Mach3 the Pulse Frequency will be mostly stable but sometimes, at random, it will drop lower by about 30 hertz. Everytime this happens, and if an axis is in motion, that axis BUMPS very hard in its motion... sometimes twice in a row, but only and always while the Pulse Frequency drops. It only lasts for a second or two.. Sometimes if the axis is moving somewhat quickly, the BUMP will fault out the Gecko 320's and the machine stops!!! Very annoying.

It could happen a few times in a minute, or only once per 20 minutes.. very random.
This happens on both computers and in both mach2 and 3. I am running the kernel at the lowest 25000hz. At higher kernel speeds the frequency drops and bumping are even worse.. almost always catastrophic to the axis in motion..

Also the "Dbl Plse" in Mach3 is flying with changing numbers ALL the time. numbers so big they are longer than the text box for them.

Any Ideas? I know the "Dbl Plse" is for debugging for Art, but should it be spinning with huge numbers?
I have tried with and without the "Enhanced pulsing" option-- no change.

This sounds a bit like a problem I had with a dongal, my CAD software used a hardware key on the LPT port and a software driver, even with the dongal removed from the port the software still messed about with the data stream to the port.  I had to remove all traces of the driver before all was well.

Graham.

Hi:

 Yup, this does sound liek either a donbgle program driver, or a process inetrference. The fact its worse on 45Khz means that the computer is struggling. Try turning off EVERYTHING in the msconfig/startup tab. This can often fix this...

Art

well, the laptop was a fresh install. It has no other programs on it. It has a wireless network card, but I disable that before I load mach.
I have been struggling with this issue for a while and over the course of time I have stripped the poor thing of every possible thing I can.. msconfig is my friend and every "extra" startup item was removed.

The P4 1.7 desktop was not a fresh install, it too was stripped down.. The only real software on it is Rhino3D. LAN card was disabled.

None of this had made much a change.

This morning I got my hands on an AMD XP 3000+ machine with winXP Pro. It has many programs loaded on it. I have not attempted any optimization changes on it at all, or even disabled its network. I loaded mach3, set it to 45000hz, and the thing is very stable on the Pulse Frequency.. Only twice now I have seen it drop by exactly 3 hz. The "Dbl Plse" is at 3 and does not change at all.
I have not had the chance to run the mill on this computer yet, but it looks promising!

Art- Is the "Dbl Plse" a hint at all? Stable at 3 on one computer and way all over the place on another mean anything?

thanks!
colin

Colin:

 The double pulse really shows you nothin at all, its an indicator to me of the internals of the engine, sometimes it will fly around, sometimes not. You can totally ignore it, its not a bad sign no matter what its doing, but the 3 pulse variation is a pretty good sign..

Art