[Fourlanders] (no subject)

Thu Aug 17 09:17:21 EDT 2017

After reading all of these reports from Bob's system testing and pondering
the symptoms, a lot of what Bob described here sounded sooooooo much like
Windows Power Management features could be coming into play for some, if not
most, of these symptoms. And.with the newer operating systems beyond XP I am
seeing a lot more features and choices with Win7 then I ever experienced
with Win 98 or XP..which means there are more ways that Windows can now
screw you if certain Win 7 fresh install defaults are not visited.

Bob's report of walking up to a station that had been setting idle and
hitting F2 to play a message, only to have a short delay, sounded like hard
drive spin up delay to me. His report of leaving PCs idle overnight with
"none of the computers were actually talking on the network even though
showing in 'networked frequencies' box. On 2m, F2 working, live PTT works
but no live audio.." shows the symptoms of "LAN port shut down" and
"selective USB peripheral shutdown" (Sound Blaster MP3+ power removal)  

When I received these refurbed PCs with the new Win7 install I only focused
on installing 20+ different programs and utilities and focused on getting
Writelog V12.xx up and running (with the newly introduced audio anomaly),
set up networking to make sure I could access the internet, allow these PCs
to properly update, and did not spend a lot of time exploring all the
options each topic in the Control Panel offers..a couple having to do with
"Wake on LAN", Power Management customization, and Firewall choices.

Here's one example I found that is significantly different between XP and
Win7 > In XP there was an option in the top layer of Power Management to
tell the PC when to power down hard disk drives. In Win7 on the page you
choose a power management option, even though you choose NEVER to let the PC
to go into sleep mode, you still have to drill down to more advanced options
to actually command the PC to NEVER turn off hard drives.    

Bob and I had a long call last night and talked over all the issues he has
reported since last week. I then went back to my lab and fired up the 432
station PC to have a closer look at these key topics. Sure enough.. to me
certain default settings certainly could have an impact on how we use Win7
and how we expect it to work with Writelog. I have documented all of the
settings I confirmed or changed and they are attached here. Bob is going to
now check each PC to ensure the options are all the same and I will do they
same with the remaining 3 PCs I have here. Hopefully, this will have a
positive impact on further system test results.

Ron

WW8RR

  _____  

From: Fourlanders [mailto:fourlanders-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of
Bill Pence
Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2017 8:38 PM
To: Bob Lear
Cc: FourLanders Contest Team
Subject: Re: [Fourlanders] 8/15-16 computer status update

windows might be in a reduced state with no activity...

probably not worth worrying about.

On Wed, Aug 16, 2017 at 6:54 PM, Bob Lear <w4zst at windstream.net> wrote:

After the Monday afternoon update, Jim came up and we worked on some other
things, but I kept doing testing  periodically.  Made bogus Q's and entered
them, passing skeds, sending gab with ALT-G, calling with F2, calling live,
changing ops, etc.  We left the computers and stations on overnight Monday
night.  Stayed out in the shack until after midnight.  NOT every station was
working properly

On Tuesday morning, the computers and stations had been left on overnight.
Started the testing rounds about 10:30 AM
6m:  computer frozen in WL, no C-A-D, had to turn off to recover. shutdown,
restart, run WL.
2m:  running OK but noticed that none of the computers were actually talking
on the network even though showing in 'networked frequencies' box.  on 2m,
F2 working, live PTT works but no live audio, CW OK
222: ok, F2, live PTT+audio, CW
432:  radio was CAT to computer but not live on network.  (Remember, I did
not have it set up to TX or do audio.)

Reboot WL on all 5 computers.  6m came up and showed 'WL stopped working'
message and 'do you want to send info' message.  Now used C-A-D to kill
these messges, shut down and restart computer and run WL.
The other 4 computers, normal exit WL, shut down computer.  restart, run WL

On all 5 computers, I loaded the file I had been using, 'test', did a save
as 'test2, save and exit and restarted WL.
Interesting that the test2 file shows up in the WL\contests\ directory but
does NOT show up when starting WL as one of the available recent files.  ??
( After another reboot or so, it did finally show up in the recents list )

Restarted all the computers:  Turn on, run WL, choose TEST2 file (if
possible, if not, I browsed and chose it), Link to Network Server and then
start testing all for proper operation.
6m:  Now CAT, F2, live PTT+audio, CW, all working normal  (6m did NOT have
the test2 file in recents)
2m:  same normal   (2m and others all had test2 file in recents)
222: same normal
432:  CAT ok

Continued the rest of the day (till 5PM) with logging Q's, calling with F2,
calling live, calling CW, changing frequencies, sending and faking skeds,
testing GAB, changing operators.  Jim got on every computer, 'change
operator', recorded his message and did the same activity.  We alternated.
Did this from before noon until 5PM when we quit for the day, shut down the
computers and stations as the WX looked like we may have a T-storm.  (didn't
happen but radar looked ominous)  I went to local club meeting, Jim went
home.

So half a day with Normal, proper WL operation and NO glitches. Finally
getting somewhere.  Wish we knew what we really did to make this happen
finally.

Wednesday morning.  Came out at 10:30, started all computers and stations.
Go around testing like yesterday, just me, but changing ops and calling CQ
with other op F2.  Now 6:30 PM and still continuing with proper operation.
Network stays connected properly, each station still operating normally with
calling, recordings, change operator, frequency display and networking.

The only thing I'm noting now that is different than we've been used to is a
noticeable delay if you hit F2 on a station that has not had any activity
for a while, I'm guessing maybe 30 minutes.  Had never seen this before.
Next time F2 is normal.  Same on other stations, but I did do something in
WL, like a 'save file', etc. before I tried F2 once and F2 was immediate.
This would not normally be a problem, but with all my recent experiences,
when it hesitated, I managed to get off several cuss words before I found it
did start working.  I have a pretty short fuse right now.

Going to shut them all down for the night (WX) and will probably turn on and
test some again tomorrow but am feeling better about the new computers now
and not thinking so much about cancelling the contest and throwing them all
out in the cow pasture!

Till the next update......    Bob

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