Flex 5000A Locks Up

Wally

My 5000A running PowerSDR 2.7.2 freezes up all of the time. It might go for a half hour or several hours but then I have to shut down the software and reboot the 5000. Sometimes the freq will change up or down but the radio doesn't change at all. It's stuck on whatever freq I was listening to. And sometime it's just frozen and you can't change anything.

Neal_K3NC

Wally,

I offer system tuning and problem solving as a commercial service if the problem persists and you need my help!

73

Neal_K3NC

I hit sent prematurely, sri! You should run the flex driver program and run it to see how your system is performing. Likely you have a bad driver that is causing delays through your IO subsystem.  You also might try a more forgiving transfer mode (like safe mode 1 or safe mode 2) and see if it helps!

What is your video card? Are you using wifi? If you are using Bluetooth, try disabling it. Also disable any webcams, etc.

Tim - W4TME

Your problem description is indicative of a PC that is experiencing long duration DPCs.  For a better understanding of DPCs, what they are and how to possibly mitigate them can be found on our HelpDesk Help Center https://helpdesk.flexradio.com/hc/en-us/articles/202118398-What-are-DPCs-and-why-do-they-matter-

Neal is really good at hunting down problems like this if you don't have any luck reducing system DPC latency.  Happy hunting.

Wally

I thought it might have been a firewire problem so I bought a new card and cable...nope, not it. I d/led the latency software on both of my computers and the one with the radio on it had some problems. I turned off the wifi, the ethernet adapter and then discovered the culprit that was messing things up was Nortons Security so I disabled it. Same problem. I then put the Flex on the other computer and...same problem. My flex has worked great for the 6 months or so that I've had it and now all of a sudden it has faults on two computers that it used to work perfectly on. I did change it to safe mode one and then two with no effect. I have no idea what to do next.

Wally

I just thought of something. It says it has a problem with the high definition bus driver from Microsoft. Could I put in a quality sound card and bypass the one on the board? Do you think it would help?

Tim - W4TME

Probably not.  Have you done the DPC check as recommended in the article I posted?

W0DHB

This might be a long shot, but some of the symptoms you're describing are similar to a problem discovered in 5000's built in 2007 and early 2008. If your 5000 is of that vintage you may want to take a look a look at ECMAN-1036. Dave W0DHB

Wally

:-( mine is an '08...is this something I can send it back to the factory for? I'm not good with small circuits.

Tim - W4TME

Yes, we still fully service all of the FLEX Series SDRs.  Just open a HelpDesk ticket to start the process.

Wally

Thank You!

Neal_K3NC

Tim
The ECO says you have never seen a report of this in the field. Is that still the case?

Tim - W4TME

Not that I can remember, but I have slept several times since 2008 ;-)

W0DHB

I had to do the ECO on both my 5000's (2007 and 2008) and know of 2 others. For us it showed up when doing doppler tuning for satellite operations. Not sure if it is Wally's problem , but might be worth a shot. Dave W0DHB

Wally

Thanks guys for all of your input. The #1 receiver might work for hours and then lock. But, if it's working and I start moving the freq in the panadapter by left clicking, holding the button down and sliding the cursor right/left it locks up. The #2 receiver still works and when I do the cursor thing it locks up as well. The panadapter gets spikes in it about every inch. Then I have to reboot the software and the Flex and then it works for a while.
 

Wally

One more thing...I d/led the LatencyMon and it goes from green to black and says "your system seems to having difficulty with real-time audio and other tasks. You may experience drop outs, clicks or pops do to buffer overruns. One problem may be related to power management, disable throttling settings in Control Panel and Bios Setup up. Check for BIOS updates."
I have the computer on hi performance, the latest BIOS and no network connection and I have turned Norton Security off...same problem. No change...it still locks.

Wally

Here is an update.
I only have I other avenue to take and that is something I've had problems with in years past and that is the software program for the video card. Years ago it tried to take over the computer and I ended up deleting it and just running with the straight video drivers. I have had my current video card for awhile and the AMD software hasn't been creating any problems but I deleted it and ran with just video drivers, ran the LatencyMon and let it run and I never got a warning about the computer being deficient. So, now if it locks I think it would need to go back for the ECO repair.
I've got my fingers crossed.

Tim - W4TME

DPCLAT indicates your PC has a problem running real-time audio, which is what PowerSDR is doing.

Since you never shared the DPC latency information, it is hard to determine the severity of this issue.  I suspect your problem is not with the radio hardware.

Wally

Tim,
I like the hardware part of computers but my software skills are somewhat lacking. I tried to save the info to clipboard and the screenshot too...then I couldn't find it to post. I even did a search for clipboard and I got bubcus. I've tried to explain what's going on and what the screen says. I think you are right in that it wasn't a radio problem. LatencyMon is a great program and it helped me tune up my computer(s). Thank you Tim for all of your help!
Wally

Wally

Well I'm bummed...I had the Flex running fairly well over the weekend but it would still freeze. Then, on Monday I deleted the PowerSDR software, reinstalled it and my #2 radio didn't work. I run RX1 on ANT2 and RX2 on ANT1 and transmit on ANT2. I looked under Antenna and RX2 didn't have a provision for ANT1 so I put the cable on RX2 and selected it under Antenna and it worked just fine. Until it didn't...I looked under Antenna again and now there is a provision for ANT1 under RX2 so I selected it and repositioned the cable back to ANT1 and it doesn't work. RX2 doesn't work no matter what I do. When RX1 works before it freezes the panadapter is very sluggish when you try the move the freq with the cursor. I just looked at the RX2 on the left side of the display and it said RX2: RX2 in but I selected ANT1 just a minute ago...I looked back under Antenna and now ANT is not an option for RX again. Upon closer examination, the only setting that works under Antenna for RX2 is the RX1 Tap. What in blue blazes is going on!

Mike

Tim,
Where do I look for your DPC check article?

Mike
w8dn@arrl.net

Tim - W4TME

Here you go

https://helpdesk.flexradio.com/hc/en-us/articles/202118398-What-are-DPCs-and-why-do-they-matter-

https://helpdesk.flexradio.com/hc/en-us/articles/202118698-Using-LatencyMon-to-collect-DPC-Latency-D...