Is my computer suitable?

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13 Apr 2012 10:01 #19166 by yello
I have some problems with a just bought Chinese 6040 CNC milling machine, or rather setting up a PC for it.

I did install 10.04 on some old hardware. They are:

EP-8RDA
AMD Athlon 1200MHz (says Ubuntu)
RAM 756Mb
Graphic card: Geforce4 MX440ST (PCI card)
10.04 (your CNC version)

The PC runs OK. a little sluggish for my taste.

I run it without monitor and use 'remote desktop' from my Xp. I want to use it for LinuxCNC only, so no video, MP3, surfing etc.

The latency test gives me roughly without touching anything but testing via remote desktop:
1.000.000 / 8400 / 995000
35000 / 10500 / 25000

With Firefox and a youtube.com video running I get roughly:

1250000 / 229000 / 996000
235000 / 210000 / 25000

Is that suitable or not?

So far I wasn't able to make it run cause I have problems to translate the MACH3 pictures to LinuxCNC, but since unsuitable hardware could be a reason too I rather ask first.

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13 Apr 2012 10:55 #19167 by BigJohnT
On some older computers 8.04 will give better results. When your not running youtube the latency numbers look good for software step generation. The other numbers when running youtube are not good at all.

John

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13 Apr 2012 11:10 #19168 by yello
Replied by yello on topic Re:Is my computer suitable?
mmhhm? When I open StepConfig the two 'max' values go up to 75000 + 33000

I that already bad? I mean, obviously I don't plan to use it for watching videos (even not for drawings etc). It's a pure CNC driver PC with network and remote desktop.

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13 Apr 2012 12:13 - 13 Apr 2012 12:13 #19169 by BigJohnT
Well there are 4 "max" values when you run the latency test. The ones your interested in are the "max jitter" numbers.

wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Latency-Test

John
Last edit: 13 Apr 2012 12:13 by BigJohnT.

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13 Apr 2012 12:24 - 13 Apr 2012 12:27 #19171 by ArcEye
Replied by ArcEye on topic Re:Is my computer suitable?
Hi

I don't plan to use it for watching videos (even not for drawings etc).

In which case give it a real world test and run 3 or 4 instances of GLXgears (all visible, not stacked one on top of the other) and do a large file copy and move the GLXgears windows about forcing repaints.
Axis uses OpenGL for the plot window, so that is the most graphically intense part of it.

I am suspecting that your video card might be a large part of the problem based upon what you say so far and this may tend to confirm it. (other GeForce cards seem to run OK but can't find specific reference to that one)

See
wiki.linuxcnc.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?TroubleShooting
www.linuxcnc.org/index.php/english/compo...ew&catid=18&id=19125

for discussion of the problems and remedial actions that may help

I would also suggest running 8.04 as per JTs post, see the 2nd link also for discussion on that issue.

regards
Last edit: 13 Apr 2012 12:27 by ArcEye.

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13 Apr 2012 12:34 #19172 by BigJohnT
yello wrote:

I run it without monitor and use 'remote desktop' from my Xp. I want to use it for LinuxCNC only, so no video, MP3, surfing etc.


ArcEye, when you use remote desktop and no monitor does opengl still cause problems? How does that all work?

John

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13 Apr 2012 14:14 #19175 by yello
Replied by yello on topic Re:Is my computer suitable?
BigJohnT wrote:when you use remote desktop and no monitor does opengl still cause problems? [/quote]

I am not an expert on Linux, but I think the remote desktop has no positive effect on the video resources. It's the same like switching your monitor off, the signal is still at the video output. With remote desktop I get the same screen resolution on the Xp as I would have with the Linux monitor. But it's a nice way to setup the linux PC without jumping physically between PCs.

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13 Apr 2012 14:53 #19176 by ArcEye
Replied by ArcEye on topic Re:Is my computer suitable?
Hi

ArcEye, when you use remote desktop and no monitor does opengl still cause problems? How does that all work?

As I understand it, if the linux box is at run-level 5, meaning an X-server is running and the GUI application (axis) is running via that xserver, the client box (XP) is essentially a dumb terminal and the video rendering is performed on the server.

That is why if you connect to an old slow machine with poor graphics, from a new fire breathing gaming machine, you still get the same crappy output from the old one!

Accessing the server from a client machine running the GUI app is completely different, because the rendering will be done on the client, using whatever data from the server.

regards

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14 Apr 2012 09:46 #19189 by yello
Replied by yello on topic Re:Is my computer suitable?
I tried to put the 8.04 on another PC and it won't load. Installation (or just try) gets stuck with a '/sbin/modprobe abornmal exit' and then a BusyBox or something like that. Any idea how to get around that?

If that matters, I try to install from a multi-OS USB stick. 10.04 and 11.10 start fine.

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14 Apr 2012 09:58 #19190 by ArcEye
Replied by ArcEye on topic Re:Is my computer suitable?

I tried to put the 8.04 on another PC and it won't load.

Whether 8.04 or 10.04 load is entirely PC dependent.

8.04 should have loaded on the PC that you gave the spec of at the beginning of the thread, but if you are trying on a completely different PC...........

The errors regards modprobe and busybox would indicate that it is only getting as far as trying to set up the ramdisk file system before hitting problems, so I would not bother further with 8.04 on that machine.

But it is well worth trying it on the AMD 1200Mhz if you haven't done so yet.

regards

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