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@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@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
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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