Reliance AutoMax Software Issue 1

[BradJ]

Is anyone still Reliance AutoMax? We have v4.3A of the Executive on a WinXP laptop and we are having issues with the Online Task Manager (basically a DOS app compiled for W2K/WXP). When going online (RS232) with the Online Task Manager, it grabs all available CPU time. This makes our laptop slow, hot, and drain the battery much more quickly then normal. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks,
-Brad

 

[controlsdude]

you might want to try the "program compatability wizard" under "accessories"

might help

 

[BradJ]

Thanks, I hadn't thought to try that. While it didn't help the CPU utilization at all, it did reduce the communication timeouts we were seeing. The communication timeouts are new since April, don't know if it's the result of a new program installation, Windows Automatic Updates, or some other unknown.

-Brad

 

[MentalSewage]

Been there, done that, gave up...

On the Rockwell site, they have an XP patch which is supposed to take care of this known problem. It installs a virtual comm. card on the laptop.

After installing the patch, I was able to go online and view the program, but when it came to uploading the program into the laptop......same timeout issue. I gave up shortly after that, being put on other projects, but its worth a shot. Just do a search on the Rockwell site.

If you do happen to get it working, please report back, as we currently have a laptop with windoze 98 just for the Automax.

 

[BradJ]

Thanks for the reply. I actually received this patch from Rockwell/Reliance tech support late last week. I tried it today and it eliminated the timeouts, although I didn't try uploading any programs. I am working with a test rack, and all my programs are small, so I'm not sure I could even give it a good test. I did take the VDD Wait Period setting off of "auto", and with a setting of 50ms it worked pretty good, although we still had a CPU utilization of around 90% with a full variable monitor window open. With just the task list up it was around 40%. I tried 100ms, and the CPU utilization dropped to 70-80%, but we started getting the timeouts again.

I also tried a program called TameDOS (which RA also recommended). Free to try, $20 to register. This also worked very well in eliminating the timeouts, but so far it hasn't done much for the CPU - about 98% with a full variable monitor window. Again, the computer runs hot, slow, and running on battery isn't an option. TameDOS does have a ton of settings and I plan to start tweaking as time allows. I'll keep you posted.

Thanks again,
-Brad