Flex 6500 Desktop Crashing

Keith Ferguson

I've had a problem crop up that's new (to me), it started a few weeks ago. The radio (a 6500) will be running fine, but randomly the desktop interface will disappear. It's just happened again after the radio's been running for about five hours. When it happens, it disappears from the desktop and there's an audible relay click from the radio. Task Manager shows SmartSDR still running. In order to get the interface running again, I have to manually stop SmartSDR in Task Manager, it will then start normally without a restart of the radio itself.

Has anyone else seen this (and cured it)? I'm running SSDR 1.11.12 and Windows 10 version 1809 build 17763.55. It's possible the problem started after the KB4464330 Windows update.

Bill -VA3WTB

For some reason the radio is losing connection with the computer. That is what it looks to be.

Mike-VA3MW

Keith

I had this problem with CW Skimmer crashing (or, very similar).  I changed my CAT 5e cable to a new one.  It was that black and white.

As a test, connect the 6500 directly to your computer (no switch or wifi) and see if it still crashes.

 Mike

Hector W2NPR

Keith,


Have a look at the event viewer and see if there is something in Windows that may be causing your issue. I have an Intel graphic driver/service issue I am dealing with currently. My W10 PC will crash after about 15 minutes of uptime without SSDR running and will crash within 5 minutes if I do run SSDR. I've uninstalled unnecessary programs and Windows updates but it still crashes. I'm hoping fixing the compatibility issue will stop it from crashing but we shall see. Good luck and 73 DE W2NPR

Jim Gilliam

Those adventurous types might consider using a programmed WintoUSB dongle that has a stable version of Windows on it. When I run into these problems, I boot up my  with my dongle to see if it is a software-related problem. Twice, it was a Windows problem and eventually bit the bullet and did a "Tim" reinstall.

https://www.easyuefi.com/wintousb/

Keith Ferguson

Thanks for the input so far. I've now tried connecting the radio directly to the computer, and it still happens. I haven't been able to relate anything in event viewer to it - there's nothing obvious, but I wasn't by the computer when it last crashed, so don't have a time I can look around in event viewer for anything that might be not so obvious.

Hector W2NPR

When you open the Windows event viewer and click on Windows Logs then Application, you can sort the events by clicking on Level. You want to look for the Critical errors and associate a time and date of when the PC crashed. You can get an exact time of the PC crashing by looking at the events under System. The source should be Kernel-Power and these would be the crash events. Try to associate these events with the events in the Application folder and it should help you figure out the cause of the crashing. I have an extraordinarily high amount of doubt SSDR is the cause. 73 DE W2NPR

Mike-VA3MW

I have converted this to a helpdesk ticket.