Stability of computer systems (1 Viewer)

[flapjack]

Geek question. I think all of the data loggers use a Windows host system for analyzing the recorded data. I've had issues with windows requiring reboots at unfortunate times. I use Linux and OS X, and have great stability for years. I wonder if teams get bit by Windows while at the track. That's not to say the software is unstable. I'm sure Don Higgins and other software developers do due diligence with QC of their software, but sometimes the underlying OS doesn't cooperate.

 

[Draw 3D]

First, you need to determine what the root cause for reboots is. Second, which Windows are you referring, Server, XP, W7 or W8?
Many reboots are from applications that have memory leaks, run Task Manager and see what is causing OS problems.

 

[flapjack]

Hi Paul, I've worked with computers for about 16 years now (longer if you count when I was still in school), so I am aware of memory leaks and the like. Yes, programs have bugs and can have memory leaks if developers are careful with memory management (the classic mistake is to malloc() but not free()). What I am after with this question is whether people have been burned by OS stability issues. Windows has gotten better over the years. Windows 7 is much more stable than XP. I don't have much experience with Windows 8 as I don't like the tablet style user interface. It would really suck to have computer issues in the middle of a race and have to resort to drastic measures to get the systems up and running again. Device drivers glitches, registry corruption and the like is what I am thinking of. Then again, I am guessing the mission critical systems are stripped down to the bare bones, so extra software other than what is necessary installed, etc... to circumvent these types of issues.

 

[Crew Chief Pro]

Our Crew Chief Software checks for memory leaks every time it starts. I designed it to reorganize the memory and attempt to shut off any power saving features. It takes quite a bit of time and experience to test various scenarios to optimize performance. Windows 8 is stable which helps on new computers.

We fully understand the optimum device driver setups and have 25 years of experience. Early on in my career I relied on friends at Microsoft to give me some undocumented fixes which made my life a bit easier. I still use these same people to give me guidance when we run into something weird.

 

[flapjack]

Don, I wouldn't know how to check for heap leaks at run time other than using HeapWalk(), which is rather slow, at least from what I've read in MSDN.

 

[flapjack]

There is also this, which I had exposure to when I worked on simulation software:

https://software.intel.com/en-us/intel-inspector-xe

pretty good for tracking down memory leaks in one's development process. No special build necessary. Integrates with Visual Studio. But execution time is dismally slow, and you still need to know which execution paths to cover, so a good coverage analysis tool is necessary to get the best results. There are other memory checking tools (like Purify for multiple UNIX platforms, of valgrind for Linux), but I think they're all UNIX based. I don't know of any off the shelf software for data logging/performance analysis that is UNIX based. If there are, they're probably Linux based.