There are lots of days that I just want to go buy all new stuff which
works consistently on modern hardware. Unfortunately to do so I figure
I'd have to triple my prices, at which point no one would buy anything,
and the whole issue would be irrelevant. So I'm stuck with a chunk of
older equipment, which still works extremely well, except for it being a
pain to set up automation with it.
On Dec 23, 2017 4:19 AM, "Lewis Bergman" <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
We delt with the same thing with radios. Programs requiring a
specific window of CPU clock speed to communicate with a device. We
had to use an intermediate program loop to slow the CPU down enough
to make them work eventually.
We ended up with a half dozen old computers around to program
various ages of equipment. Unlike you, we eventually were able to
decide it want worth it and just told the customers it was EOL. I
know you don't have the luxury.
On Sat, Dec 23, 2017, 3:19 AM Forrest Christian (List Account)
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
The machine I am most worried about took about a week to rebuild
last time we had a software issue even with carefully logged
instructions.
To give everyone an idea about my pain, there are on this
machine two particular drivers for two different pieces of
hardware. One won't install on anything after Windows 7. The
other one requires windows 8.1 or 10. Fortunately the driver
which requires windows 7 to install works just fine on the
latter versions, it just won't install on them. I think it uses
some functionality that isn't shipped with windows after 7. So
a rebuild involves installing windows 7, installing this driver,
and then upgrading to Windows 10, at which point everything else
can get installed.
A lot of the problem with much of the test equipment and
physical machinery seems to be that it was designed with a
specific age of computer in mind, and requires that system to run.
On Dec 22, 2017 9:43 PM, "Josh Luthman"
<[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
How hard is it to just throw in a brand new PC? What if you
had the files from the old one?
Josh Luthman
Office: 937-552-2340 <tel:(937)%20552-2340>
Direct: 937-552-2343 <tel:(937)%20552-2343>
1100 Wayne St
<https://maps.google.com/?q=1100+Wayne+St+Suite+1337+Troy,+OH+45373&entry=gmail&source=g>
Suite 1337
<https://maps.google.com/?q=1100+Wayne+St+Suite+1337+Troy,+OH+45373&entry=gmail&source=g>
Troy, OH 45373
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On Dec 22, 2017 5:01 PM, "Forrest Christian (List Account)"
<[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
If I could put it on a VM, I would definitely consider
it. Unfortunately, due to the fact that these machines
are not really 'servers' or 'workstations' but instead
'automation/test platforms', that is not really a
possibility. The OS on these machines need direct
access to the hardware. Often, the drivers/software are
doing horrible things under the surface to windows to
make it work. Adding a VM layer just isn't practical
in this case. National Instruments describes it best:
"NI hardware is not supported on VMs due to
communication challenges and the possibility of
incorrect data.Virtual machines generally cannot access
the PCI bus. As such, PCI- and PCIe-based instruments
are inherently incompatible with VMs, as are MXI
connected PXI and PXIe chassis. Modern VMs often allow
access to USB ports (known as USB pass-through). Given
the hosted nature of the VM, the variable speed of data
transfer associated with USB pass-through may cause
errors when communicating with DAQ devices."
My experience is that even pci or pcie passthrough which
is supported in some VM's still isn't enough to permit
this stuff to run reliably - it's a lot like the
USB-passthrough issue described above.
In my experience, failures are usually going to be
software or disk, not the underlying hardware. If the
underlying hardware fails, I realize that I'm stuck
unless I have identical hardware. Knowing this, I
often actually have an identical motherboard and/or
server setting as part of the spares. And by
identical, I mean exact version, often bought at the
same time, or from the same batch.
On Fri, Dec 22, 2017 at 10:08 AM, Josh Luthman
<[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Images for Windows between any two machines simply
isn't dependable. DO NOT EXPECT IT TO WORK.
Now if you can put all your stuff in a VM, you're
set. Put it in Dropbox for a cheap smart (bit
change only) backup.
Josh Luthman
Office: 937-552-2340 <tel:(937)%20552-2340>
Direct: 937-552-2343 <tel:(937)%20552-2343>
1100 Wayne St
<https://maps.google.com/?q=1100+Wayne+St+Suite+1337+Troy,+OH+45373&entry=gmail&source=g>
Suite 1337
<https://maps.google.com/?q=1100+Wayne+St+Suite+1337+Troy,+OH+45373&entry=gmail&source=g>
Troy, OH 45373
<https://maps.google.com/?q=1100+Wayne+St+Suite+1337+Troy,+OH+45373&entry=gmail&source=g>
On Dec 21, 2017 11:06 PM, "Forrest Christian (List
Account)" <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Normally backups around here are file-based,
I.E. I want to make sure I don't lose data.
I have a couple of computers now which I really
would hate to have to rebuild due to hardware
failure. These are generally computers which
run a machine, such as the automatic test system
and the pick and place machine. These machines
area all typically single-drive (non-mirrored)
mostly off the shelf hardware running various
versions of windows. I'd like to take a full
image, and have at least a reasonable chance of
putting it back on similar hardware (probably
same motherboard, maybe different storage
medium) and it just work.
It used to be that the tool for this was Norton
Ghost. But that's been discontinued (and I
understand it was going downhill before that).
So I'm looking for whatever the current modern
version is.
I know there's a few tools out there which do
this (Macrium, Acronis, etc). But the reviews
are all littered with failures. Unfortunately
it's hard to tell how much of this is lack of
clue and how much of this is broken software.
I'm wondering if anyone has experience with
using these modern equivalents? Preferably
something which runs on a range of Windows
OS'es, and can dump the image onto NAS.
--
*Forrest Christian* /CEO//, PacketFlux
Technologies, Inc./
Tel: 406-449-3345 | Address: 3577 Countryside
Road, Helena, MT 59602
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[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> |
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--
*Forrest Christian* /CEO//, PacketFlux Technologies, Inc./
Tel: 406-449-3345 | Address: 3577 Countryside Road,
Helena, MT 59602
<https://maps.google.com/?q=3577+Countryside+Road,+Helena,+MT+59602&entry=gmail&source=g>
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