forum.cncdrive.com

Hi
It’s quite strange.
My cnc pc died I had an urgent job so decided to use an old Windows XP’s machine. Quite a nice pc but old.
Installed and configured UCCNC fine, profile loaded. It looks good. The machine homes and jogs without an issue but!
If you load a job and run it, it stops at the first line. The timer runs and counts up but nothing else. However if you minimise the program then maximise it again the codes runs as normal. I found this by mistake when trying to sort out why it was not running.
It is absolutely repeatable too.
If you stop and rewind the minimise/ maximise thing has to be done again....
Any ideas on how to fix this
Cheers
PeteM

Which controller are you using? UC100, UC300, UC300ETH, UC400ETH?
If you using an ethernet controller then check the latency test (Statistics button) on the Configuration/Profiles page.
The graph should never just to the top 20msec value, if it does then it will be a network card problem or the computer is just too weak for the task.

Aslo check and make sure your graphics card drivers are up to date.

Hi
I’m using the uc100 and it’s USB.
Cheers

In this case it can be only a graphics card problem or the computer is just not powerful enough, but much more likely a graphics card issue.

Cheers
There is another strange effect that might be related.
When shutting down the UCCNC application it prompts you with the usual “You sure you want to close -Yes/ No” if Yes is selected the prompt disappears and then nothing. To close the application a further click on the close X in the top right hand corner. Then it closes straight away. Is that helpful?
PeteM

The only reason I can thing of for the application to not close after it asks you to close and you selecting yes can be if the M99999 destructor macro file is missing from the Profiles/Yourprofilename_macros folder.
The closing does not happen because the software can't execute the destructor macro and so the closing will not happen at first.
However this behaviour of the software was changed several versions back, so newer UCCNC versions does close even if the M99999 is missing.
So, I guess you running an older UCCNC version and you missing to have the M99999 macro file.

Sorry, Balázs, but there's no problem with M99999. When the Windows 10 video problem was, the program could not exit normally. It did the same as PeteM described. So, as your first idea was, the problem is with the video subsystem of this old PC.

Thanks
I am trying to find a graphics card to improve that area.
Currently it’s using the embedded one.
PeteM

It's usually not a problem itself that it is an embedded or PCI graphics card.
The problem can be if:

1.) The video card has too low memory (VRAM), because if the graphic images do not fit into the memory then OpenGL will start copying the images between the RAM and VRAM and since the UCCNC using a relatively high screen redraw and refresh rate this can slow down the application and the computer, because normally when the data fits in the VRAM then no copying at all happen and all graphics calculations are done directly by the GPU on the graphics card and so the CPU and the RAM are not involved. This continous copying could slow down even a powerful computer, but if the computer (CPU) is also slow then thing are even worse.

2.) If the video card drivers and not installed then usually Windows will still find and use some default drivers which are mostly very far from the optimal and so these drivers often are not even able to use the capabilities of the card and so graphics will be slow and power consuming and then very similar issue happens as described in point 1.
So, it is important to install the drivers for the graphics card, because it can make a big difference.

Cheers. Great info.
I have found an old S3 graphics card but as you say there is only default windows drivers which are very bad fit. As the card is so old I can’t find drivers on the net.
I have now given up on that machine and found another old machine that is better in the graphics department. Lucky I’m the sort of person that doesn’t throw stuff away.
Cheers for the info and help it is very useful.
PeteM. I will update as I go.