[time-nuts] Using a frequency synthesizer replacement for motherboard oscillator

[shalimr9 at gmail.com]

I am not sure that a precision clock will help if the cpu is busy and skips clock cycles. I believe this is one of the problems with general purpose OSes like Windows.

I believe the better boards like the Soekis use hardware dividers to alleviate the cpu busy problem.

Didier

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-----Original Message-----
From: Sarah White <kuzetsa at gmail.com>
To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement <time-nuts at febo.com>
Sent: Fri, 30 Nov 2012 3:55 PM
Subject: [time-nuts] Using a frequency synthesizer replacement for motherboard oscillator

Has anyone ever used a TAPR clock block or other frequency synthesizer
to sort the clock drift / timing problems on a regular computer? I'll
probably end up with a used dell or IBM workstation for this purpose.

Recently, I came across a low-cost frequency synthesizer capable of
using a 10mhz frequency reference (planning on using the thunderbolt
GPSDO I'm working with once I manage to sort out the temperature issues)

http://www.tapr.org/~n8ur/Clock-Block_Manual.pdf

^ TAPR "Clock Block" has an installation example for how to do what I'm
planning with a Soekris net4501 low-cost / low-power embedded device...

What I'm hoping to figure out is how to do the same, except on a proper
computer such as the local used ones I'm able to get for less than $200
with 2ghz with 30GB hard disk, 512mb or more ram, etc. So I figure this
should be fine for what I'm planning.

Example of what I'm trying to do, though based on the low-power embedded
Soekris net4501 system from the TAPR manual's example section:

http://www.febo.com/time-freq/ntp/soekris/index.html

^Aren't those the photos from clock block frequency synthesizer manual?

Again, I'm wondering if anyone has opinions or experience about doing
such things with NOT an embedded system (as I said, can get a nice 2ghz
or so machine for less than $200 locally at a brick and mortar shop
within walking distance)

Thanks in advance,
Sarah


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