Dick,
A few ideas:
Do you see any other symptoms at the same time, such as a slowdown in
the software's response to frequency changes on the rig, or a slowdown
in the rig's response to commands from the software? If you do, that
could point to a problem in your rig control setup that could be backing
everything up. If you are using an Icom rig, for example, you should
make sure CI-V transceive is turned off.
As for your RTTY configuration, are you using FSK or AFSK, and if FSK,
how? Using EXTFSK, or a real serial port, or ...?
If you are using a USB device, have you made sure that all of your USB
root hubs are set so as to disable the automatic shutdown power
management feature? USB controllers don't always recognize that you are
using the port for output, and they may decide the port is not busy and
try to shut it down to save power after a period of supposed inactivity.
You correct this by going into Device Manager, selecting Universal
Serial Bus controllers, and then for each and every USB Root Hub and
Generic USB Hub, opening the Properties window for the hub, selecting
the Power Management tab and unchecking the "Allow the computer to turn
off this device to save power" check box. You may also want to disable
other power management features from the Control Panel, but this is the
one that seems to cause the most problems, and it does not seem to be
accessible from the Control Panel's Power Options applet.
You might also consider disconnecting any USB devices that you are not
using during the contest, such as external hard drives used for backup,
especially if they have software that checks your computer periodically
for changed files to do automated backups.
Another contributor to computer slowness is network activity, and
particularly automated updates over the Internet.
Others have suggested you leave your antivirus running, which is
fine...but you should turn off its automatic update feature. Do a manual
update immediately before the contest, turn the automatic feature off,
and if you're not comfortable with letting it get a couple of days
behind, do further updates manually during off times.
If you allow Microsoft Update or Windows Update to do automatic updates,
turn that feature off at least for the duration of the contest.
Turn off any email checker/notifier programs.
Turn Skype off while you are operating.
If you are not operating assisted, you might consider disconnecting from
your local network (or the Internet, if you don't have other computers
on a local network) during the contest.
73,
Rich VE3KI
K9OM wrote:
I'd appreciate your tips for getting my CPU to operate
reasonably fast with RTTY as I've tried several different Windows XP and
Windows
7 computers and they'll all operate RTTY fast for awhile... and then
they'll slow down.
Such as, in today's BARTG 75: I'd be decoding and transmitting at an
excellent rate and then after a few minutes, my CPU would lock up while
decoding
and not print for about 10 seconds after his transmission ended. Very
frustrating! Again, this problem is not new but has happened with 5 different
CPU's I've tried over the past 2 years. (4 Windows XP machines and now my
new Windows 7)
By the way, I'm running N1MM and MMTTY.
I've tried different radios and different serial cables... but the same
problem over and over: CPU decodes great for awhile and then "locks up" and
prints the information about 10 seconds after it's sent.
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