Welcome to the new FlexRadio Community! Please review the new Community Rules and other important new Community information on the Message Board.
If you are having a problem, please refer to the product documentation or check the Help Center for known solutions.
Need technical support from FlexRadio? It's as simple as Creating a HelpDesk ticket.

1500-3000 upgrade question

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!

Answers

  • John
    John Member ✭✭
    edited June 2018
    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
    WX7Y Member ✭✭✭✭
    edited June 2020
    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
    Tom Dove Member
    edited April 2017
    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
    Bill Vollmer Member
    edited April 2017
    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
    WX7Y Member ✭✭✭✭
    edited June 2020
    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
    Marty VK2VCC Member
    edited August 2017
    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
    David Pearson Member ✭✭
    edited April 2017
    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. 

Leave a Comment

Rich Text Editor. To edit a paragraph's style, hit tab to get to the paragraph menu. From there you will be able to pick one style. Nothing defaults to paragraph. An inline formatting menu will show up when you select text. Hit tab to get into that menu. Some elements, such as rich link embeds, images, loading indicators, and error messages may get inserted into the editor. You may navigate to these using the arrow keys inside of the editor and delete them with the delete or backspace key.