Experiment Advisor Monitoring

[David McFarlane]

Oops, my apology, I see that I just repeated what David Vinson 
(quoting PST Support) already said.

-- David McFarlane


At 9/27/2013 11:42 AM Friday, David McFarlane wrote:
>If you just unplug your computer from the network while running 
>E-Prime experiments (as advised in the E-Prime User's Guide), not 
>only will you disable clock synchronization, you will also avoid 
>other timing interferences due to network activities.
>
>-- dkm
>
>
>At 9/27/2013 11:33 AM Friday, David Vinson wrote:
>>Hi Vaaal,
>>
>>I had some exchanges with PST support about the clock issues with 
>>WinXP, here's what they told me at the time:
>>
>>>Windows XP sometimes causes the speed of the processor to be 
>>>reported as the clock frequency. When the speed of the processor 
>>>changes during an experiment, this can interfere with E-Prime's 
>>>timing. Therefore, our developers have advised that some users 
>>>with Windows XP may need to switch over to the power management 
>>>clock. I have attached a document explaining how to make this 
>>>change. Once the change has been made, E-Prime will use the power 
>>>management clock on your system, which should perform much better 
>>>than the default clock. Note that this involves changing your 
>>>system's Boot.ini file, so we strongly recommend backing up your 
>>>system before performing these actions.
>>>
>>>Also, you should consider turning off clock synchronization, at 
>>>least while running E-Prime experiments. It should only occur 
>>>occasionally, but your network might have different custom 
>>>settings. Please see the following Microsoft article for more 
>>>information: 
>>>http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/windows_date_turn_off_synch.mspx?mfr=true. 
>>>Of course, the simplest way to turn it off during an experiment is 
>>>to physically unplug the cable from the computer. You should not 
>>>have any other programs or processes running during the experiment 
>>>anyway, so unplugging it should not cause any problems.
>>
>>The document mentioned in the first paragraph includes instructions 
>>on how to switch the power management clock by editing boot.ini - 
>>I'm sure PST support will pass that information along to you in due course.
>>
>>Hope this helps,
>>(A different) David
>>
>>
>>On 27/09/2013 16:24, Vaaal wrote:
>>>Hi David,
>>>thank you for your advice, I got it.
>>>What actually concerns me is this one, since my machine in the lab 
>>>run exactly Windows XP: "The E-Prime Primary Clock is configured 
>>>in a way that could cause timing inconsistencies on Windows XP. 
>>>Contact PST Tech Support to configure the clock for more 
>>>stabilized performance when using Windows XP with this finding". I 
>>>contacted the PST tech support but still no reply. In the 
>>>meantime, do you have any knowledge about that? Should I install a 
>>>new OS in my lab machine?
>>>
>>>On Friday, 27 September 2013 15:49:28 UTC+1, McFarlane, David wrote:
>>>
>>>     Valerio,
>>>
>>>     You can puzzle this out for yourself.  Try the following.  Open a
>>>     blank (Professional) experiment.  Run it.  Now look at the resulting
>>>     ExperimentAdvisorReport.xml.  See the Experiment Advisor Modules
>>>     table?  Does it include all the same items as before, even though the
>>>     experiment is completely blank?
>>>
>>>     Now disable some of the Experiment Advisor Modules.  E.g., back in
>>>     E-Studio, open the Experiment Object Properties, go to the Experiment
>>>     Advisor tab, and disable "Use of ClearAfter" and "Use of
>>>     Stretch".  Run this, open the resulting ExperimentAdvisorReport.xml,
>>>     and look at the Experiment Advisor Modules table.  Do you see that
>>>     "An object has its ClearAfter property set to Yes..." and "A visual
>>>     object has its Stretch property set to Yes..." have both disappeared?
>>>
>>>      From this evidence would you conclude that the Experiment Advisor
>>>     Modules table tells you only what modules were enabled, and not what
>>>     problems it found?  Would you find this useful, because without this
>>>     information you could not tell whether the lack of a warning only
>>>     meant that that test was not run?
>>>
>>>     As usual, do not take my word for any of this, test it out for
>>>     yourself.  I presented my answer this way because I need to stress
>>>     that I do not have any inside knowledge about E-Prime, I simply
>>>     figure it out exactly as I outlined above.
>>>
>>>     Best regards,
>>>     -----
>>>     David McFarlane
>>>     E-Prime training
>>>     online: http://psychology.msu.edu/Workshops_Courses/eprime.aspx
>>>     <http://psychology.msu.edu/Workshops_Courses/eprime.aspx>
>>>     Twitter:  @EPrimeMaster (https://twitter.com/EPrimeMaster
>>> >> >     <https://twitter.com/EPrimeMaster>)
>>>
>>>     /----
>>>     Stock reminder:  1) I do not work for PST.  2) PST's trained staff
>>>     take any and all questions at
>>>     http://support.pstnet.com/e%2Dprime/support/login.asp
>>>     <http://support.pstnet.com/e%2Dprime/support/login.asp> , and they
>>>     strive to respond to all requests in 24-48 hours, so make full use of
>>>     it.  3) In addition, PST offers several instructional videos on their
>>>     YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/PSTNET
>>> >> >     <http://www.youtube.com/user/PSTNET> ).  4) If you do
>>>     get an answer from PST staff, please extend the courtesy of posting
>>>     their reply back here for the sake of others.
>>>     \----
>>>
>>>
>>>     At 9/26/2013 05:01 PM Thursday, Vaaal wrote:
>>>     >Quick question about this interesting feature of e-prime. When I
>>>     >open the xml I can read several tables. Although it is clear for me
>>>     >the meaning of onset to onset stats, onset delay stats, load time
>>>     >stats and experiment advisor finding, the last table is a little bit
>>>     >more difficult for me to understand: Experiment Advisor Modules.
>>>     >I was checking this table when I notice that most of the "problem"
>>>     >pointed out by this table was actually not relevant for my
>>>     design. For example:
>>>     >  "A visual object has its Stretch property set to Yes, which can
>>>     > cause display timing anomalies. Instead of using Stretch, consider
>>>     > editing the source material to match the size and proportions you
>>>     > want to display during the experiment".
>>>     >But no visual object in my experiment has stretch set to Yes. Or,
>>>     again:
>>>     >"An object has its ClearAfter property set to Yes. ClearAfter is a
>>>     >deprecated property."
>>>     >
>>>     >This is not true for any of my object.
>>>     >So, how reliable is this table?
>>>     >Or maybe it just point out to POSSIBLE/LIKELY problems, without
>>>     >actually telling that you are incurring in one of those?
>>>     >
>>>     >Thank you very much for any clarification.
>>>     >Valerio
>>
>>--
>>David Vinson, Ph.D.
>>ESRC Research Fellow
>>Cognitive, Perceptual and Brain Sciences Research Department
>>University College London
>>26 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AP
>>Tel +44 (0)20 7679 5311  (UCL internal ext. 25311)

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "E-Prime" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to e-prime+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to e-prime at googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/e-prime/5245f3eb.0452320a.29fa.002cSMTPIN_ADDED_MISSING%40gmr-mx.google.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.