1500-3000 upgrade question

Bill Vollmer

I am looking to move from a FLEX-1500/Hardrock50 combo to a FLEX-3000 (outside possibility of a -5000).

Issue: With PowerSDR, using VACs, WSJT...or ..Fldigi, and Chrome open for QRZ, LOTW, etc... I sometimes see CPU usage of 100% and associated dropped decoding and/or PowerSDR freeze-up. 

Question: Does the firewire connection require more "computing" than the USB...will it exacerbate this problem...diminish it...stay the same?

Situation: Shack computer specs: Pentium Dual-Core E5700, 3.00GHz, 2MB smart cache(seems to be the limiting factor?) 8GB RAM.
I am not looking to buy another computer, so this is a stay with FLEX or buy a 7300 kind of question.

Thanks!

John

I would first check what other un-needed software is running at the same time and shut them all down. Then check if that cpu usage has dropped. If you have any video running ir you tube and even a webcam, thats going to push the processor even more.

WX7Y

If as John said clean up all the un-used software, then look and see if there is any available driver updates and find a good fire-wire card these days that will work, it should run the 5000 or 3000 just fine.
I run my 5000 for several years .
If your running Motherboard video that could cause a lot of it too and you might want to install a external video card.

Go into your windows Task manager and see what is using all the CPU 

73's
Bret WX7Y

Tom Dove

I have had this problem with a few different computers and my Flex 3000. It was a latency issue, a chronic problem inherent to Windows. The cure is to locate and download a free latency checker (sorry, I don't recall the name of the one I used) and find out which hardware driver is causing the problem. On one of my machines, it was the Wi-Fi driver, and once I disabled that, all was OK. On two others, the FireWire driver needed to be changed back to the "IEEE1394 Legacy" version to make the things work.
  Your computer specs look quite adequate for the job.
-- 73 de Tom / K3ORC

Bill Vollmer

OK guys, thanks for the info.

I will look into the things you all have listed...
Now that I'm in Task Manager I just learned that you can click the headers of the different columns to sort...I never knew that.

Looks like PowerSDR is usually 12-20%  //  WSJT-X somewhere in the 2-5%, JT9 (32bit) even though I'm just decoding JT65 as far as I know shoots up to the mid30% range at 50sec mark  //  Fldgi 17-25%  //  Chrome is good for as much as 30% spread out in 3 different instances/applications  //  MS Edge about the same as Chrome.

I'm looking at video cards and firewire drivers on Amazon...

Does the 3000 use the same yaesu mic that the 1500 does?

Thanks again

WX7Y

yes they all add up, 
also if your shopping for a Firewire card make sure it is a firewire 400 and not the 800, at least my radio doesn't work with a Firewire 800 port and adapter cable.

73's
Bret
WX7Y

Marty VK2VCC

id also check that all cpu cores are unlocked. windows tends to keep a few closed. google "unlocking cpu cores" that may help also.

David Pearson

I will not run Chrome on my PC,  I find Chrome hogs the CPU.   I use Edge mostly for the browser, and before the Edge browser came out I used Firefox.