Video Cards

[chipper338]

Thanks for the tips on Power supplies

Hi Fibbgann,
Thanks for the tip on beefing up your power supplies when using multiple video cards. I add video cards but did not beef up the power supply.

As a result, my PC hung up 3 to 4 times a day. So this weekend I replaced the power supply to 400w-peak and I have been isolating another failure. Apparently, going weeks on the underpowered power supply created a softfailure in one of my 256MB RAM modules. I believe I've isolated the module and tomorrow morning I should conclude my testing. If all goes well, my PC will work fine.

Thanks again,
Chip

[EdKoF]

Originally posted by FibbGann
edkof what type of ram, chip, internet connection do you have? Also how many applications are you running?

It's an ASUS P4PE motherboard, which I believe has an Intel 845PE chipset, 512 MB PC2700 DDR and a 1024/512 kbit ADSL connection.
Running are: eSignal, Ensign, Excel, Interactivebrokers (2 times), and 1 or 2 other applications.

Just curious, why do you ask?

Edo.

[FibbGann]

EdKof the chipset could be a problem due to what your running. I am not knowledgable about the esign program, so I could'nt help you there. And not sure how much your interactive brokers draw on your pc? (You can monitor this under your PROCESSES window in your tak manager) Everything else seems to be up to par for what your doing.

How many windows are you running in esignal?

Fibbgann

[FibbGann]

Chipper338... If you tell me your PC specs and what programs you run at the same time I might be of further assistance. And yes, the insignificance of the power supply usually leads to software crashes! Although the power supply is not always the cause of it there are a few others.

"""Usually""" motherboard, power supply and cards are the 3 main causes.

Fibbgann

Maybe someone would be nice enough to to fix me up a few efs?

To be truthful I stink at the programming part!

Fibbgann

[EdKoF]

Fibgann,

Thanks for your concern, but I am not aware of any problems really

The only problem I had recently is with upgrading eSignal 7.4 to 7.5, which suddenly brought al sorts of cpu load issues back, which I thought had disappeared many months ago. Are you referring to this?

Originally, I was replying to pj909's posting about improvements in IB. Since IB is rather slow in starting up, I was curious what did he do, and what effect did it have.

Actually I'm very satisfied with the stability of this system, compared to another pc which I have, which runs Athlon XP processor on an MSI motherboard.

Thanks,


Edo.

[MR]

.

Originally posted by FibbGann
Marc I see this board as ask anything related to trading. I ask plenty of you all, so I do my best to try and return the favors to everyone I can! I know quite alot about PC's when it comes to trading., and no very little when it come to efs code. Ask away is my motto.

Thanks FibbGann and others for keeping this thread going! It is great! Your questions, answers, this discourse is great and will become a great source of information in the future for all of us! I love reading it. Keep up the great writings. -marc

[fabrizio]

You all forget my great MATROX PHARELIA 256.....

It drives only 3 Screens but works great even in 3d

I put on the other analysis new machine 2 PNY NS 400.......you never know how many screen you need.... melium abundare quam deficere.

[fabrizio]

FibbGann

I like to know your opinion on the PLANAR LCD screens.

And expecially on the 19" with 700:1 brightness ratio.

Do you have any feedback from others users or from your exeperience?

Thank you

Fabrizio

[chipper338]

Pice on 19" LCD

What price did you find for your Planar?

Chip

[pj909]

Keep the comments coming on monitors!!!

Edo,

Here is the change IB had me make to the command line to start TWS. It doesn't change startup performance very much but sure helps during the day. Insert:
-Dsun.java2d.noddraw=true
after "C:\Program Files\Java\j2re1.4.2_01\bin\javaw.exe" and before the -jar command. I would recommend also talking to IB tech support about any Java issues, they seem to be a little more up to speed on performance issues compared to the eSignal guys. (BTW - I find eSignal support generally heads above IB)

I'm pretty sure there is a memory leak in one or more of the Java apps since the problem gets worse as the day progresses. And the more EFS studies I load the worse it gets. Disabling the direct draw has been a help and with taskinfo I'm able to flush and reclaim memory. The latter usually works but can be risky.
----------------------
My Config is:
Athlon 1.2 Ghz (Gigabyte MB w/VIA chipset), 512MB, Matrxo G400 (32MB), Viewsonic PF795 dual 19in monitors, XPpro. And the usual apps are Outlook, TWS (x2), eSignal (currently v7.4 winsig, winroos), OptionVue and lately TaskInfo2003.

[chipper338]

video cards

Hi Fibgann,

Well Sunday, I moved all my video cards into one area. They occupy the AGP slot, slot 1 and slot 2.

Amazingly, this seems to have solved the problem along with the beefier power supply. I think the entire situation was a combination of weak power supply and signals traversing the buss.

Anyway, my PC was stable the entire trading day. I'll wait a few more days before declaring the problem fixed!

thanks again for your tip

Chip

[chipper338]

In regards to the comment...
I'm pretty sure there is a memory leak in one or more of the Java apps since the
problem gets worse as the day progresses. And the more EFS studies I load the
worse it gets. Disabling the direct draw has been a help and with taskinfo I'm
able to flush and reclaim memory. The latter usually works but can be risky.

FWIW, I use Mem Turbo II to monitor and recover memory. Check it out at http://www.memturbo.com/

Chip

[FibbGann]

Chipper... you might consider 512 ram for your next upgrade. Also make sure your videocards are not creating to much heat. If the are running hot you can always add a $5 fan.

Fibbgann

[FibbGann]

Fabrizio... About your monitor inquiry. I spent alot of time (which seemed like an eternity) on researching monitors for trading or any Multi-mon purpose. I wanted to get 6, 17 to 22 inch flat screen monitors (LCD) for my new PC. What I found out was that every reveiw, person I talked too, etc. the information differed to much on which was best or not . So, I looked into the manufactures of monitors to see what was junk and what was mentioned the most for being stable and reliable monitors.

I never came across "Planar" then again I wasn't looking for a high end monitor. (If that is what it is?) I beleive there are better things to invest your money in! (not refering to stocks, lol)

I also researched wether to go with LCD or CRT... My conclusion was LCD's just are still to pricey. (Just can't see me getting the bang for the buck!!!) So, I went with CRT's from DELL, Great price and have no problems returning them if I were to have problems.

In one of my previous posts in this discusion I explained how to get great discounts.

If you don't have the space then LCD may be your only choice. The CRT"S will not hang -up, which LCD's are rumored too sometimes?


Fibbgann

[FibbGann]

Fabrizio... How about building a few easy efs's for a sorry excuse for a programmer?


Fibbgann