Is this Intel i7 machine good for LTSpice?

Yes, and Windows 3.1 crashed on a regular basis for about any reason whatsoever just like 95, 98 and ME.

MS has been telling developers since Win2000 and maybe since NT to not put data files in the Windows or Program Files directories. Many chose to ignore this which wasn't enforced until Vista and became one of the things everyone loves to hate about Vista.

Windows doesn't put anything from an app in the registry. That is up to the app to decide. Getting to these directories is easy if they used the right location, C:\ProgramData. Instead they continue to use C:\Program Files and now with Win8 MS puts the files in the long path name you list, but I believe they can be reached transparently through the path C:\Program Files So the best of both worlds.

If the app puts them somewhere else, don't blame windows.

These programs have been updated many, many times since Windows 3.1. Windows NT, 2k, XP, Vista, 7, 8 and 8.1 aren't even the same OS as the

3.1 tree which was ended when XP was released. Stick with the old habits and blame yourself or your program maintainer.

I use some open source Windows software that does the same crap and I am very vocal about the cause and the fix for the problem. Few of the developers are interested though. Now that 8 makes this (using Program Files for data) work adequately they no longer have a need to change it.

If you are relying on programming habits from over 20 years ago, then you will have to stew in your own soup.

SSD is great for anything that uses virtual memory (god forbid) or runs for a short time after taking time to load. I would not expect spice to have issues with disk speed except I guess the graph data is stored on disk maybe? I seem to recall some of my simulations generating a lot of data which would have easily overflowed the 3 GB of RAM in my machine after the OS got done with it.

--

Rick

I'm on a quad core Xeon, which means I can have 8 threads. Also a Supermicro motherboard with 32G of error correcting RAM. Basically a low end workstation.

LT Spice has been multithreaded for about 5 years now, but the nature of spice simulation won't lead to a linear speed up with the number of cores. In fact, your setting of three makes sense based on system monitor analysis.

If you go with error detection and correction, you need a server grade mobo like a Supermicro. Not all boards that can use such RAM have the ability to report back on the amount of correction that occurs.

Regarding: "I have spent too many hours this weekend tweaking the transient response of a semi-hysteretic (we call it "hysterical") switchmode constant-current source. There are about 8 interacting knobs to turn. At 30 seconds per run, understanding the interactions is impossible."

Spice is not a design tool. It is a verification tool.

It isn't the graphics card as much as the standard of acceleration. ATI and Nvidia use different standards.

NGspice has Cuda support, which means you need Nvidia.

You also need an OS that supports CUDA.

Of course it's a design tool. Why spend a half hour cranking out a voltage divider network with a calculator, when you can Spice and fiddle a solution in a few minutes?

Is a calculator a design tool? Is an equation a design tool?

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

The Samsung 840 series has a speed bug. The fix is in flux, so it is best to do an internet search for this issue. Samsung released a windows program to "fix" the problem.

I unfortunately have the 840 in this PC but I run linux, so their fix isn't so handy.

The Linux fix is on the Samsung web pile in the form of a bootable CD: Near bottom of page. I've only done the Windoze version once. When it works, it's quite simple. However, if the "advanced mode" is required, it's an ordeal. As always, make an image backup before doing anything this radical.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558

On Sun, 02 Nov 2014 21:08:42 -0800, miso Gave us:

SNIP

No bugs in these speed demons from them...

Bet they are still faster than the Corsair and other counterparts from the same mfg era.

Assuming you consider VGA to be irregular use a HDMI to DVI cable for the other,

--
umop apisdn

? AFAIK Microsoft software is still putting data files there.

--
umop apisdn

On 3 Nov 2014 06:20:45 GMT, Jasen Betts Gave us:

Most video cards even come with an adapter these days.

Thanks. I downloaded the ISO and the instructions.

In the dark ages, you would get a file to put on a floppy to upgrade firmware. Then the manufactures decided that they would just distribute a windows program. Nice, but if you don't run windows, well not so nice.

My blueray has new firmware.

Only windows solutions. Now it isn't like I don't have a windows box handy, but this shouldn't be necessary. If windows wasn't so damn expensive, I could dual boot everything, but I don't like paying the Microsoft tax. I have three copies of win7 pro. Enough is enough.\

I'm going to research the firmware upgrade path prior to buying any more peripherals.

A voltage divider. We're talking Ohm's law here. You would really resort to Spice to design something that can be done simply with middle school algebra?

Have I used Spice to analyze a resistor divider? Actually yes, but in finite element analysis to simulate a laser trim procedure. The basic networks are designed by hand.

16 actually. Here's a picture:

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs 
Principal Consultant 
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC 
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 

160 North State Road #203 
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 

hobbs at electrooptical dot net 
http://electrooptical.net

The more interesting question is whether the i7 with 4 cores and hyperthreading to run 8 threads actually provides any better performance with LTSpice than the corresponding i5 with 4 real cores and no hyperthreading. Sometimes 5 or 6 threads is optimum but quite often in search problems it consumes power without speeding it up!

In some chess problems the i5 can be faster and certainly cheaper!

Be interested to know if it holds with LTSpice too.

--
Regards, 
Martin Brown

If it saves me time, absolutely.

Do that if you enjoy it. I'd rather get scut work like that over as soon as possible, which is often Spice + twiddle.

Here's a divide-and-offset network designed by fiddling. The object was to map +-10.5 volts or so into the unipolar ADC range with available parts, already on the BOM. The final close-enough in:out transfer function was determined by Spice, then plugged into the ARM code... the opposite of the classic design direction. A bonus is that the .asc file is part of the permanent design record, and easily revisited if ever necessary.

This took minutes.

Version 4 SHEET 1 880 680 WIRE 224 -16 112 -16 WIRE 112 16 112 -16 WIRE 224 64 224 -16 WIRE 112 128 112 96 WIRE -192 192 -256 192 WIRE -48 192 -112 192 WIRE 0 192 -48 192 WIRE 48 192 0 192 WIRE 224 192 224 144 WIRE 224 192 128 192 WIRE 400 192 224 192 WIRE 448 192 400 192 WIRE -256 240 -256 192 WIRE 224 240 224 192 WIRE -48 256 -48 192 WIRE -256 368 -256 320 WIRE -48 368 -48 336 WIRE 224 368 224 320 FLAG -256 368 0 FLAG 224 368 0 FLAG 112 128 0 FLAG -48 368 0 FLAG 400 192 ADC FLAG 0 192 IN SYMBOL res 208 48 R0 WINDOW 0 60 44 Left 2 WINDOW 3 60 79 Left 2 SYMATTR InstName R1 SYMATTR Value 1K SYMBOL res 208 224 R0 WINDOW 0 50 37 Left 2 WINDOW 3 51 71 Left 2 SYMATTR InstName R2 SYMATTR Value 1K SYMBOL res 144 176 R90 WINDOW 0 67 56 VBottom 2 WINDOW 3 73 56 VTop 2 SYMATTR InstName R4 SYMATTR Value 2K SYMBOL voltage -256 224 R0 WINDOW 0 55 68 Left 2 WINDOW 3 39 109 Left 2 WINDOW 123 0 0 Left 2 WINDOW 39 0 0 Left 2 SYMATTR InstName V1 SYMATTR Value 10.15 SYMBOL voltage 112 0 R0 WINDOW 0 -80 43 Left 2 WINDOW 3 -73 81 Left 2 SYMATTR InstName V2 SYMATTR Value 3 SYMBOL res -64 240 R0 WINDOW 0 51 44 Left 2 WINDOW 3 52 75 Left 2 SYMATTR InstName R5 SYMATTR Value 50 SYMBOL res -96 176 R90 WINDOW 0 -51 49 VBottom 2 WINDOW 3 -37 49 VTop 2 SYMATTR InstName R6 SYMATTR Value 50 TEXT 280 -8 Left 2 ;PIEZO DIVIDER FOR Z354 TEST BOARD TEXT 376 40 Left 2 ;JL JULY 30 2014 TEXT 352 240 Left 2 ;ARM ADC RANGE IS 0 TO +3 TEXT 488 136 Left 2 !;tran 3 TEXT 344 280 Left 2 ;PIEZO DAC RANGE +-10.15V TEXT 504 104 Left 2 !.op

--

John Larkin         Highland Technology, Inc 

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com 
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

On Mon, 03 Nov 2014 13:14:47 +0000, Martin Brown Gave us:

Bullshit.

You demonstrate clearly that you are an inarticulate moron. Why am I not surprised?

It is easy enough to do the tests and see for yourself. Hyperthreading can get in the way of fast multithreading in some larger problems.

--
Regards, 
Martin Brown

Only 30 seconds, Luxury. A large bulk of my sims at work are in the 15 mins to 1 hour range, some take overnight.

It doesn't look like you need core compute power to me, you want a spice with real time control of components for this particular method of, er.. ahmmm.. "pissing" about design approach.

You can actually do this in SS. If real time mode is enabled, with marching waveforms also enabled, changing component like resistors and caps will update the simulation matrix immediately and the marching waveform will reflect this. There are other spice programs out there that are better designed for real time technician twiddling though.

The er...hmmm.. more professional way is to set up multi way sweeps of all the pots you want to twiddle, and examine the resulting set of graphs. You can gain intuition by doing this, even after the fact. That's what those that generate millions of asic chips do anyway.

:-)

Kevin Aylward

- SuperSpice

I do a lot of video conferencing via web where content moves. Other than that just CAD, no movie streaming and such.

--
Regards, Joerg 

http://www.analogconsultants.com/