Laptop and ACJr lockup

[JJohn]

Hi,

I have been running my ACJr with a laptop connected 24/7. It worked great the first week or so. Today, however, I found both systems locked up, twice.

When I am at work I put the laptop in standby mode with the lite version of the notes software running and leaving the serial cable connected. Typically, when I return, I wake the laptop and my graphs and status update in a few seconds and all is well.

Today, when I came home to check things, the computer was locked up (had to remove all power to get it to recover) and the AcJr was not executing instructions. All outputs were stuck in various states. Well tonight it did it again. Twice in one day.


Any idea what is happening and how to fix it? If this happened when I am on a trip it would be a disaster.

Thanks in advance,
John

[clp]

The laptop lock sounds like a typical windows sleep mode issue. I experience the same thing with my laptop occassionaly when resuming from sleep (nothing to do with AquaNotes).
Do the buttons on the AquaController work? Was it in the error state before or after your PC was rebooted? If the AquaController enters an error state it should reboot in about 2 minutes. Do you give the AquaController time to do this? What was displayed on the AquaController display? Does unplugging the serial cable change change anything?

Curt

[JJohn]

Unfortunately, when I noticed the problem I went into a panic state and did not stop to diagnose the issue. The ACJr did recover sometime between me noticing the issue and the serial port being disconnected. It recovered on its own. On the controller's screen was a static display of the outputs. The power head icons were not changing although they should have been as they are set to oscillate. I think the time display was advancing but I did not pay enough attention to the controller, I was focussed on the laptop. By the time I rebooted the laptop the ACJr was working perfectly, long before I reconnected the serial cable.

I agree it is probably a windows error. Any advice on how to ensure it doesn't happen again? Do other people run with a windows machine in standby? It seems like the ideal way to use the system: Open the laptop, hit one key, and get a status update, and then put it back in standby until next time you want to check things.

John

[clp]

I need more information to understand what caused the windows crash. Probably easiest/fasted to do this over the phone (408-578-3022).

Curt