Giving SB full attention with Process Priority

[asteude]

With all the warnings about having a dedicated controller computer with nothing running but the barebones essentials so as to not distract the computer from the task of driving the ShopBot, I am surprised that setting process priority doesn't come up more.

You can give a process a priority - anything from Low to Realtime - using the Task Manager. Has anybody tried this? As far as I can tell, the only annoying thing would be that you have to do this every time you run the program, but even that has a solution (http://www.prnwatch.com/prio.html.) I'm also not sure if sb3.exe is the actual process doing the cutting. If it spawns another process, it doesn't matter what priority the parent process is. The child process will start at Normal priority.

I'm not suggesting this as the primary way to give SB dedicated resources on the PC. However, I only have the one computer and, for now, will be shutting extraneous programs down manually before I start cutting. And, of course, that's error prone. Just in case I forget to kill some little background process, I want to use the priority solution as a "plan B".

If there are a million threads on this already and I just searched on the wrong keywords, I wouldn't be surprised. Feel free to flame me.

Andy

[harryball]

While in theory it sounds like a good idea you should be careful giving a program a higher priority. What you have to realize is you may be giving your program a higher priority than a process it relies on. That can create unpredictable results.

I'm not saying it won't work, you can certainly give it a try and see what happens. I just didn't want everyone to jump on the idea and start cutting $300/sheet material. :eek:

Not that ANYONE on this forum would do that :D

The best solution is to kill any and every process and program that is not needed. One good way to do that is nuke your drive and install a fresh copy of the OS with minimal options and bloatware. Go through the processes in Task Manager and identify each one. i.e. you may find a process supporting a modem, kill it and remove it.

/RB

[asteude]

Hmm. Yes. There's that warning again. :rolleyes:

I have to admit that I'm reluctant to try this on my own laptop with my own ShopBot with my own $200 sheet of material, but I do welcome others to try it and let me know what happens!

I guess, for the price of a couple of ruined sheets of material, I might be able to get a cheap dedicated PC. <SIGH!>

[myxpykalix]

I'm the first to admit i don't know alot about how my laptop operates but i do know that there are several things that work in the background to make the laptop function in the way it does.

I guess if you look at all the processes and programs that start at startup and in the past i have gone in and shut some of those things down but i knew what they were like yahoo messenger, ect.

If i didn't know, i left it alone. This was stuff on my home computer.
The laptop was bought strictly for bot operation and has never had a web browser or been hooked up to the net. I don't seem to ever get any other type of pgms that interfere with bot operation and like the others have pointed out there is some tutorials on how to strip out extraneous pgms that possibly would interfere.

I go by the old saying..."if it ain't broke..don't fix it" so i'm not sure how giving it a priority might help...but hey , what do i know?:rolleyes:

[dana_swift]

One experiment is worth a thousand expert opinions.

Little to lose by trying it. If reliability improves, it begs the question as to why it wasn't part of the software design. If reliability decreases or remains the same, it wont stop a host of future questions on the same subject here.

[beacon14]

I vote for getting an inexpensive used computer and using it as a dedicated SB controller. No experimenting required, and you have the benefit of using your current computer for other tasks while the SB is running. No way can you do that with only one computer. Plus that way you'd have a backup in case the SB computer goes up in smoke.

[Brady Watson]

I vote for getting an inexpensive used computer and using it as a dedicated SB controller. No experimenting required, and you have the benefit of using your current computer for other tasks while the SB is running. No way can you do that with only one computer. Plus that way you'd have a backup in case the SB computer goes up in smoke.

X2

You can get a decent computer for next to nothing on Craigslist. You can even barter by doing cutting in exchange for a computer...

-B

[asteude]

Alright... you beat me into submission. I got a cheap PC off craigslist with an almost clean install of XP. I got rid of some Dell garbage and everything nonessential I could think of.

Together with the new EE Controls powerline filter I just installed, this had better be the most reliable ShopBot on the planet.

[Gary Campbell]

Andy...
If you (or anyone else) wants to know what is essential, look at Black Vipers configuration info. I have been turning off dozens of XP services on the Control Computer.

http://www.blackviper.com/2008/05/19/black-vipers-windows-xp-x86-32-bit-service-pack-3-service-configurations/

[dana_swift]

Gary, thanks for the link. That is more useful than a dedicated computer, as the dedicated computer still has all the MS Junk running in the background.

I have been aggressive at disabling services and have gotten very reliable shopbot operations on an old slow XP machine. Just getting rid of interruptions to cutting operations makes the difference.

The only advantage of shutting off services, is you can shut off a critical one and not be able to reboot without using safe mode to fix the mistake. Take baby steps. Read about the service on google, then determine whether your installation might run better without it.

[Gary Campbell]

Dana...
BV give some info on these, and the windows services dialog will list the dependencies. I have gone to full power user with the older versions of SB3, however the newer versions require a few more.

Maybe its time that the software developers gave SB3 full process priority. Those of us that try to make a living with these machines depend on them on the same level that SB relies on its main breaker.