Interference between SETI-BONC and Dragon Naturally Speaking

Anyone come across interference between SET-BOINC and Dragon Naturally
speaking Voice Recognition software?

I have just moved over to SETI-BOINC from Classic on small farm. One PC
with the voice recognition software refuses to download SETI WUs when
running under BOINC. The rest ran OK after some WU download issues. The
issue of the one with the voice recognition active went on for nearly 24
hours. I put this loss of WU download to the current "dropping
connections". So went along with the "please have patience!!" : ((

For local reasons I just rebooted the PC and BOINC is the first
programme in to the Systray. The voice recognition software now seems to
refuse to load.

Interestingly, BOINC downloaded SETI WU immediately. This suggests the
voice recognition software was interfering with BOINC's d/l capability
in some fashion. In contrast, as BOINC loads first on boot up, it
interferes with the ability of the voice recognition to load at start
up.

Any thoughts, observations or suggestions please?
--
John Clark

John wrote:
[...]
For local reasons I just rebooted the PC and BOINC is the first
programme in to the Systray. The voice recognition software now seems to
refuse to load.

Interestingly, BOINC downloaded SETI WU immediately. This suggests the
voice recognition software was interfering with BOINC's d/l capability
in some fashion. In contrast, as BOINC loads first on boot up, it
interferes with the ability of the voice recognition to load at start
up.

Any thoughts, observations or suggestions please?

Does the voice software take control of the internet connection to
'phone home' (for registration details for example)?


There may be some sort of 'resource clash' between the two. But then
again, there shouldn't be.

.... unless... Are you on dial-up?


Sorry, more details required for any guesses!

Good luck,
Martin

--
---------- OS? What's that?! (Martin_285 on Mandriva)
- Martin - To most people, "Operating System" is unknown & strange.
- 53N 1W - Mandriva 10LE GNU Linux - An OS for Supercomputers & PCs
---------- http://www1.mandrivalinux.com/en/concept.php3

In article , Martin 53N 1W
writes
John wrote:
[...]
For local reasons I just rebooted the PC and BOINC is the first
programme in to the Systray. The voice recognition software now seems to
refuse to load.

Interestingly, BOINC downloaded SETI WU immediately. This suggests the
voice recognition software was interfering with BOINC's d/l capability
in some fashion. In contrast, as BOINC loads first on boot up, it
interferes with the ability of the voice recognition to load at start
up.

Any thoughts, observations or suggestions please?

Does the voice software take control of the internet connection to
'phone home' (for registration details for example)?


There may be some sort of 'resource clash' between the two. But then
again, there shouldn't be.

... unless... Are you on dial-up?

Martin Thanks for the reply. )

The PC in question runs Win XP Pro and has shared broadband link with 3
other machines (2 running Win2K, and the other NT$ with a Win98 front
end).

No I do not use dial up, but yes "at install" the voice recognition
software (Dragon Naturally Speaking) asked me for online registration.
However, there is no "out to ScanSoft to update software" feature. So,
internet connections are limited, and I have never had any hint the
voice recognition takes control of the broadband link in the 18 (odd)
months I have used it.

It was only after yesterday's reboot that I found BOINC downloaded the
SETI WUs OK. Before that it was trying continuously, and the current
reports of "loosing connections after the last DB outrage" was thought
to be the reason.

I see in Task Manager that the voice recognition .Exe is running as a
process. But there is no problem downloading WUs.

The current problem seems to be the uploading of completed results,
shown by the BOINC Work tab status "100.00% completed, uploading!!.
However, I have the same issue on 2 other PCs with BOINC-SETI installed
but no voice recognition software. So returning results seems to be an
issue, not connected with BOINC-SETI. Perhaps this is down to the
"loosing connections" status comment on the web site.

If, as you suggest, there is a resource clash somewhere, I need to find
it.

My work around will be to run BOINC all the time until I need to load
the Voice Recognition software. When needing to use the latter I will
close down BOINC, and visa versa.

However, I would like to identify the real issue, why and, if possible,
correct it.

John
--
John Clark

John wrote:
[...]
The PC in question runs Win XP Pro and has shared broadband link with 3
other machines (2 running Win2K, and the other NT$ with a Win98 front
end).

Usual question of whether you have problems with the anti-virus or
firewalling. Especially, are you using a 3rd party firewall AND have you
DISABLED the MS firewall? (Only have /one/ firewall enabled.)


[...]
It was only after yesterday's reboot...

What has changed from before the reboot?


Sorry, some diagnostics or tracing is required to give any guesses. I'll
agree with you that there /should/ be no problem. If anything, the voice
stuff should just slow down Boinc due to higher priority CPU usage.

A silly guess: Something else hasn't stolen the sound card away from the
voice stuff?


Try experimenting and checking what happens... Let us know what you find.

Good luck,
Martin

--
---------- OS? What's that?! (Martin_285 on Mandriva)
- Martin - To most people, "Operating System" is unknown & strange.
- 53N 1W - Mandriva 10LE GNU Linux - An OS for Supercomputers & PCs
---------- http://www1.mandrivalinux.com/en/concept.php3

In article , Martin 53N 1W
writes
John wrote:
[...]
The PC in question runs Win XP Pro and has shared broadband link with 3
other machines (2 running Win2K, and the other NT$ with a Win98 front
end).

Usual question of whether you have problems with the anti-virus or
firewalling. Especially, are you using a 3rd party firewall AND have you
DISABLED the MS firewall? (Only have /one/ firewall enabled.)

No the XP firewall was disabled on installation and not been used in 2
years now. The XP system has no anti virus. However, the data server (a
dual P3 RAID mirror+1 system running W2K) has Nortons AV 2005. This
sweeps the other PCs on the network daily. All other PCs use the
hardware router firewall, backed by ZA Professional on each.

Yes I shutdown ZA Pro on the XP machine well before the reboot to see if
this was the problem ... No it was not. I then rebooted and BOINC-SETI
downloaded WUs OK.


[...]
It was only after yesterday's reboot...

What has changed from before the reboot?


Nothing. But before the reboot I installed BOINC, as the BOINC Manager,
and linked to SETI.


Sorry, some diagnostics or tracing is required to give any guesses. I'll
agree with you that there /should/ be no problem. If anything, the voice
stuff should just slow down Boinc due to higher priority CPU usage.

A silly guess: Something else hasn't stolen the sound card away from the
voice stuff?


Try experimenting and checking what happens... Let us know what you find.

I will )


Good luck,
Martin


--
John Clark