A Few Fixes That Would Make DSD+ Even Better :)

[adamfancher]

DSD+ claims you can edit files while DSD+ is running, but I'm not convinced. There's times I've made a change or deleted something with the program running and not have it save what I did.

That's why I am hesitant to trust that line in the manual. Typically, to be safe, I completely exit out of the software so that it and myself aren't editing the same file at the same time. I know it says it's OK to do that, but logically if 20 new radios affiliate or key up and get written to the radios file and I'm externally editing the original file, as soon as I save that file doesn't it blow away the 20 radios that DSDPlus just logged?

Obviously the downside to shutting down the rig is you miss the traffic. A paste feature would be sweet.

 

[DaveNF2G]

Apparently DSD+ does not utilize file locking. If you make a change when DSD+ updates the file, then your change gets lost as DSD+ saves the active version from memory. It is best to stop DSD+ and use a text editor to edit the files.

 

[adamfancher]

On a side note, I finally got to the root of my Windows 7 BSOD issue. Memtest64 revealed multiple repeatable failures on one of my four 8GB RAM sticks. All the others scanned good, so hopefully a pair of those and the new pair I just ordered will do the trick. Riding along with just 16GB at the moment.

Still backing up my DSDPlus.radios file religiously

 

[polkaroo]

Never use any two-way sync feature on the DSDPlus folder. I've had similar things happen when I synced DSDPlus folders with OneDrive and Google Drive in an effort to have some sort of a live-backup. Both cloud sync apps likely corrupted files during a sync (or locked a file when DSDPlus was trying to write to it) resulting in DSDPlus writing a new file in its place. The larger the files, the bigger chance of corruption. My own .groups file is 32000+ lines large.

You can use automated backup apps like rsync that allow one-way only syncs. Clunky, like the DSDPlus data files, but it works.

 

[BinaryMode]

On a side note, I finally got to the root of my Windows 7 BSOD issue. Memtest64 revealed multiple repeatable failures on one of my four 8GB RAM sticks. All the others scanned good, so hopefully a pair of those and the new pair I just ordered will do the trick. Riding along with just 16GB at the moment.

Still backing up my DSDPlus.radios file religiously

I was going to point this out based on your BSOD Info. And in case you don't know, the programs "Bluescreen View" or "Who Crashed" can help shed light on the problem. Still may be a little cryptic to those that don't know much about computers. I prefer Who Crashed, but just FYI, as I monitor my network I saw it talks to their server behind your back. Well, lots of programs and the core of Windows does that too. I mitigate it...

BSODs are often caused due to a driver or hardware. So knowing that you retrace your steps relating to a program you installed and its drivers or a piece of hardware.

Protip# 342^2.

You can use a FOSS (Free Open Source Software) program called Ventoy to format a USB drive. Then you can just copy/paste an img or iso file right onto this Ventoy formatted dive and boot straight away. Upon boot Ventoy will present a menu to chose which image to boot from. So you could have a 64GB drive of Linux distros like Puppy Linux, Damn Small Linux, Memtest86, Hiren's Boot CD, etc. I install Windows with Ventoy actually. There are some interesting versions of Windows at archive.org, and then there's AtlasOS (a series of scripts)...


You may be interested in what I wrote here.

Oh, if you test your memory with Memtest86 and discover an error - just one error, you then test each stick one at at a time individually. Also each memory slot as it could be the motherboard...

Now here's a wrench in the gears. I had 16GB of all of the same memory, but one, just one stick had a slightly different model number. Nevertheless all were the same memory sticks. Despite that I kept getting problems in games and found out through a lot of trial and error using Memtest86 that one stick of memory that had just a few characters different in the model number compared to the other three sticks was the problem. It seems that one odd stick was incompatible with the other three sticks. But all four sticks were good. Testing all at the same time gave the issue.

So the moral of the story is this: buy all your memory at once. Don't do what I did and buy a few sticks here and there even though they appear to be the same model. You want ALL to be the very same model number right down to the single character.

 

[adamfancher]

I was going to point this out based on your BSOD Info. And in case you don't know, the programs "Bluescreen View" or "Who Crashed" can help shed light on the problem. Still may be a little cryptic to those that don't know much about computers. I prefer Who Crashed, but just FYI, as I monitor my network I saw it talks to their server behind your back. Well, lots of programs and the core of Windows does that too. I mitigate it...

BSODs are often caused due to a driver or hardware. So knowing that you retrace your steps relating to a program you installed and its drivers or a piece of hardware.

Protip# 342^2.

You can use a FOSS (Free Open Source Software) program called Ventoy to format a USB drive. Then you can just copy/paste an img or iso file right onto this Ventoy formatted dive and boot straight away. Upon boot Ventoy will present a menu to chose which image to boot from. So you could have a 64GB drive of Linux distros like Puppy Linux, Damn Small Linux, Memtest86, Hiren's Boot CD, etc. I install Windows with Ventoy actually. There are some interesting versions of Windows at archive.org, and then there's AtlasOS (a series of scripts)...


You may be interested in what I wrote here.

Oh, if you test your memory with Memtest86 and discover an error - just one error, you then test each stick one at at a time individually. Also each memory slot as it could be the motherboard...

Now here's a wrench in the gears. I had 16GB of all of the same memory, but one, just one stick had a slightly different model number. Nevertheless all were the same memory sticks. Despite that I kept getting problems in games and found out through a lot of trial and error using Memtest86 that one stick of memory that had just a few characters different in the model number compared to the other three sticks was the problem. It seems that one odd stick was incompatible with the other three sticks. But all four sticks were good. Testing all at the same time gave the issue.

So the moral of the story is this: buy all your memory at once. Don't do what I did and buy a few sticks here and there even though they appear to be the same model. You want ALL to be the very same model number right down to the single character.

Thanks for weighing in. I do use Bluescreenview so I've at least been able to see what error occurred and when, it's a heck of a lot easier than trying to do pretty much anything with the Windows dump file.

As far as the memory goes, I have 4 sticks of Vaseky PC3 1600MHz 8GB non-ECC, one of which was proven bad by Memtest64. In its place, I ordered a single stick with the same specs but dual rank. Probably goes without saying that didn't work. I know I'm slowly working my way towards replacement of all 4 sticks but I'm going to get another dual rank stick to match the one I just bought.

I should mention that there is also something not quite right with the settings on my motherboard. I can run 2 sticks with the default configuration settings. However, in order to get 4 sticks working I have always had to downclock the memory to 800MHz, raise the northbridge voltage to 1.2V and the DRAM voltage to 1.6V. This is a clone (same make/model motherboard and processor) of another machine, which behaves in the exact same way with this particular set.

 

[BinaryMode]

There may be some setting in BIOS/UEFI you're over looking or the XMP profile isn't set. That, or the memory is incompatible with that particular motherboard. You might want to see if your motherboard manufacture supplies a QVL document. (Qualified Vendor List).

What are XMP and EXPO profiles and how do I use them?

XMP and EXPO profiles automatically set your system RAM to higher frequencies. Here's how to do it.

www.pcgamer.com