Hi John and others interested

I will give you a rundown of things that need to be addressed for both hardware and software to work in Windows XP with control software (IsodatNT 2.0 in your case).  These recommendations apply to pretty much all software that control instruments (WinTOC, EAGER 300, Elementar EA, Isodat etc).

 

1) Hardware (i.e. computer)

  a) The BIOS: 

The Power Management settings have to be set to the least affecting value in the BIOS.  If you can turn this off in the BIOS then set it to "OFF".  On the Dell computers this may be a choice between S1 and S3.  To get there you press "DEL" or possibly "F2" when the BIOS boot window first appears at start of the computer.  Watch for the prompt on the screen it should tell you which button to press, then go to the "Power settings" in the BIOS and adjust accordingly.

 

  b) Windows XP hardware settings: 

What are some of the symptoms?

- Computer is ON but screen is dark and no matter what you try it will not wake up.  A hard reboot is needed.  This can be a daily thing, as in next morning.

- When the screen does wake up some instability is noticed and a hard reboot is needed.

- Varies from one computer to the next depending on the motherboard and chipset used by manufacturer.

When Windows XP is installed it has the habit of checking the hardware (PnP) and making, so called, informed decisions on how the settings should be for the majority of users. This is usually fine for the average desktop machine.  However the killer here are the settings for "Hibernate", "Stand-By " and "Turn off hard disks" in the "Power Options" properties from the Windows "Control Panel".  The only one that is safe is the "Turn off monitor" setting.  When control software runs, it does so as a background task.  If you are not there to touch the keyboard or mouse it may go into one of these power saving modes and kill or hinder an application that is acquiring data in the background.  In the "Power Schemes" tab everything should be set to "Never" except for the monitor setting. Also, and especially, UNCHECK the box in the "Hibernate" tab to deactivate it completely.  These settings are supposed to work with the motherboard power management schemes.  However these BIOS settings depend on specific rules within the chipsets and BIOS programming. And those can change as often as we change our underwear (in some cases this could be many months but not years... I hope).  For example many Dell computer models will not come out of hibernation when controlling software is trying to complete tasks and need a complete reboot.  Whether this is due to the controlling software or just the motherboard itself, I can't confirm.  The problem disappears when these power saving modes are disabled.

 

2) Software

     a) Windows XP Service Pack installations:

In the “Control Panel” go to the “Automatic Update” and set it to “Deactivate automatic update”.  As we already know Win XP service pack 2 (SP2) is not to be installed until software manufacturers have time to fix the bugs that Microsoft has “helped” them to discover.  However many of the fixes in Win XP, pre-SP2, need to be installed for stability.  The windows update site has a new interface that allows this to be performed.  You need to use IE 6 or higher and go to the Windows Update site (IE menu… tools/Windows update).  When you get there it may suggest a download to the new updater (Bitstream 2xx or something similar).  Install it and follow the instructions where you may need to reboot after.  When you finally get to the new Update site you will see two choices (titles may vary, I have French software):

- Quick Install (Recommended)… this gives you SP2

- Custom install

DO NOT USE the Recommended.  Click on Custom installation.  It will then do a check and come up with different fixes and patches.  It should show you all patches you need except SP2.  Install them and this will increase your machine stability 10 fold.

  

b) McAffee Antivirus

I have found this anti-virus to create serious resources problems.  When running with WinTOC 5.2 it went nuts and used 45-55% of the processor time and pushed WinTOC to use up to 46% of processor time leaving nothing for the other apps.  The computer became so slow it was unusable.  This problem was intermittent but was definitely caused by McAffee.  I was running the WinTOC software with IsodatNT 2.0 SP1.39 in the same computer at a different lab.  When the antivirus was removed it worked fine for the three following days I was there.  In our own lab, with Norton Antivirus (ver 7.6 or 8.1) we have the Elementar EA software, WinTOC and IsodatNT 2.0 running simultaneously with few problems.  We can run the EA software for isotopes while the TOC runs as a standalone for quantitative and it works quite well.

 

Also if you install Office products like Excel, which we use daily, make sure you go to the Office Update site to put in the office patches.  The link (Office family) is in the same window as the Windows Update site.

 

I think that’s it for now.  Good luck

 

Gilles

 
 
 
  -------- Message d'origine-------- 
De: Stable Isotope Geochemistry de la part de J T Hill 
Date: jeu. 2004-10-07 07:05 
À: [log in to unmask] 
Cc: 
Objet: [ISOGEOCHEM] Isodat running problems



	Hello
	
	We are running Finnigan's IsoDat 2.0  system with Service Pack 1.39 to
	control a Kiel Device and MAT253, on a Windows XP platform with 256Mb
	RAM.  We are getting persistent software failures, of two kinds.  The first
	is spontaneous termination of an Aquisition sequence, with the log-file
	message that the system has tried to start a script that is already
	running.  This is Fatal and the sequence terminates.
	The second type of failure is that the Aquisition application simply seizes
	up.  No error message appears on the log-file and the current scripts
	appear as "running" in the ISLScript window.  In fact nothing is
	happening.  A variant of this is that when we start Aquisition from the
	main Isodat menu, it starts but after a few seconds we get a Microsoft
	error window saying that it should be shut down.  Shutting it down leaves
	Isodat in an unstable state and Aquisition cannot be started again unless
	the whole system is shut down and the computer rebooted.  Running Task
	Manager at this stage indicates variable memory use, but never complete
	usage of all the memory.
	
	Is anyone else experiencing problems like these?  Any suggestions as to
	actions we could take to improve the situation?
	
	John Hill
	
	John Hill
	Mass Spectrometry Facility
	University College London
	Chemistry Department
	20 Gordon St.
	London
	WC1H 0AJ
	
	Tel: 020 7679 4605