I was trying to search for a post from about 2005 that contained a document and link to a free utility on how to run mach from a laptop. Sadly, the 'Search' function on the forum will not go back further than 2006. I dug through my Mach archives and found the document so I thought I would re post it as I have found it very handy in the past.

Link to utility software: http://cpu.rightmark.org/products/rmclock.shtml

Jeff - I run Mach 3 from a laptop. I think the problem is the word - laptop.I am lucky, in that I got this laptop from my daughter, Jessica. She had bought it prior to going to Universirty, and it cost upwards of £1000 (plus £500 repair warranty) so it was not cheap. It is a full feature Toshiba.

The trouble with many laptops is that, to get the price down, the spec is cut, and many of the functions are shared. The memory is "borrowed" by whichever part of the machine needs it at the time, and the processors tend to be slower.

That being said, I think a laptop in the workshop is superb. It is compact, and at the end of the day you can close it up, so it is dust free. That being said, the screen just went on mine, so I have a spare thin screen attached to it.

By all means buy one and try it - by all means look at the spec. Put in an extra memory chip if possible. If it does not work, there is always Smmoth Stepper, which takes away from the computer a lot of the "donkey work" of running a CNC machine, and leaves the computer free for the real work.

. Sadly, the 'Search' function on the forum will not go back further than 2006.

Jeff
When was the forum created, my membership says Feb 2006 and I was here fairly near the beginning, so I am thinking it couldnt have been much before that?

Hood

So is that the correct result. Should that process RMClockHlt be shown as using that much cpu time.

Paul E. Killoy

jimpinder - I am not needing to use a laptop for Mach, nor asking about using a laptop. I was trying to provide a link to the old post to someone today and found that Search function only goes back to 2006. I reported the same info as the original post to help out newer folks having problems trying to get laptops to run Mach. Sorry for the confusion...

Hood - I'm not sure when the forum was created. I found a post of mine from 2006 where I mentioned the previous post by name, that was around mid year 2006 I believe. So the original had to be before that.

galtx - I think part of what the program does is keep the CPU busy doing a very, very low priority 'do nothing' thread so the CPU tries not to throttle back to save power. It's been a few years since I used it but it did allow Mach to work on my old Dell laptop (that and killing the blasted QT.exe from Apple) until I got a desktop machine built for it.

Thanks Jeff, I had posted this one in the Members Docs board in the support area a while back and couldn't remember for the life of me where it came from.

Thanks a lot Jeff,
Brett