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From: Stephen
Subject: 1 GHz CPU and it still cannot time things properly.
Date: 29 May 2012 12:19:27
Message: <4fc4f70f$1@news.povray.org>
I found an old wind up watch that I had not used in years. I got it 
serviced but it was running slow so I adjusted it. It went from running 
150 seconds a day slow to running 21 seconds fast. Not too bad for the 
first attempt, I thought.
Now that I know that the adjustment lever has the range, I will be 
scientific. So I recorded the tick on my tablet (1 GHz CPU) and analysed 
it. I also recorded a quartz watch as a reference. Damned if the wave 
form was > 0.6% out. That is nearly 9 minutes out in a day. It looks 
like I will have to revert to the old fashioned method of adjust, let it 
run for a day and repeat until I get fed up.
Could do better if it tried. :-(

-- 
Regards
     Stephen


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From: Warp
Subject: Re: 1 GHz CPU and it still cannot time things properly.
Date: 29 May 2012 12:33:27
Message: <4fc4fa56@news.povray.org>
Stephen <mcavoys_at@aoldotcom> wrote:
> Now that I know that the adjustment lever has the range, I will be 
> scientific. So I recorded the tick on my tablet (1 GHz CPU) and analysed 
> it. I also recorded a quartz watch as a reference. Damned if the wave 
> form was > 0.6% out. That is nearly 9 minutes out in a day.

  It actually doesn't surprise me that CPU clocks aren't adjusted to
extreme accuracy because they don't need to. It's not like they have to
precisely sync with anything. This especially so because most modern CPUs
support throttling. (In fact, an error 0.6% sounds pretty small to me.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp


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From: Orchid Win7 v1
Subject: Re: 1 GHz CPU and it still cannot time things properly.
Date: 29 May 2012 12:38:36
Message: <4fc4fb8c$1@news.povray.org>
On 29/05/2012 05:19 PM, Stephen wrote:
> It looks
> like I will have to revert to the old fashioned method of adjust, let it
> run for a day and repeat until I get fed up.
> Could do better if it tried. :-(

You could try using the atomic emission spectrum of caesium-133 to 
adjust the frequency of the quartz oscillator...

For reference, the frequency of photon generated by the transition 
between the two hyper-fine ground states of a caesium-133 atom is 
*defined as* 9,192,631,770 Hz. As in, that's the current SI definition 
of what one second *is*.


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From: Stephen
Subject: Re: 1 GHz CPU and it still cannot time things properly.
Date: 29 May 2012 15:12:05
Message: <4fc51f85$1@news.povray.org>
On 29/05/2012 5:33 PM, Warp wrote:
>    It actually doesn't surprise me that CPU clocks aren't adjusted to
> extreme accuracy because they don't need to. It's not like they have to
> precisely sync with anything. This especially so because most modern CPUs
> support throttling. (In fact, an error 0.6% sounds pretty small to me.)


last night before going to sleep and in the morning I went full steam 
ahead, at it. Maybe I just miss working for a living.

others you measured parts per million. When you expect to get a watch 
running to +/- 2 seconds a day it is galling to have to do it by iteration.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen


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From: Stephen
Subject: Re: 1 GHz CPU and it still cannot time things properly.
Date: 29 May 2012 15:16:02
Message: <4fc52072$1@news.povray.org>
On 29/05/2012 5:38 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>
> You could try using the atomic emission spectrum of caesium-133 to
> adjust the frequency of the quartz oscillator...
>

Sh*te! I forgot. I have one of those in the back shed, as well.

> For reference, the frequency of photon generated by the transition
> between the two hyper-fine ground states of a caesium-133 atom is
> *defined as* 9,192,631,770 Hz. As in, that's the current SI definition
> of what one second *is*.

*/- a minute a month will do me. Actually twice a day will do if I 
forget to wind it up. :-P

-- 
Regards
     Stephen


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From: Orchid Win7 v1
Subject: Re: 1 GHz CPU and it still cannot time things properly.
Date: 29 May 2012 16:03:54
Message: <4fc52baa$1@news.povray.org>
>> You could try using the atomic emission spectrum of caesium-133 to
>> adjust the frequency of the quartz oscillator...
>
> Sh*te! I forgot. I have one of those in the back shed, as well.

0wned.


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From: Stephen
Subject: Re: 1 GHz CPU and it still cannot time things properly.
Date: 29 May 2012 16:27:41
Message: <4fc5313d@news.povray.org>
On 29/05/2012 9:03 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>>> You could try using the atomic emission spectrum of caesium-133 to
>>> adjust the frequency of the quartz oscillator...
>>
>> Sh*te! I forgot. I have one of those in the back shed, as well.
>
> 0wned.

And never called me mother!

-- 
Regards
     Stephen


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From: scott
Subject: Re: 1 GHz CPU and it still cannot time things properly.
Date: 30 May 2012 03:57:16
Message: <4fc5d2dc$1@news.povray.org>
> Now that I know that the adjustment lever has the range, I will be
> scientific. So I recorded the tick on my tablet (1 GHz CPU) and analysed
> it. I also recorded a quartz watch as a reference. Damned if the wave
> form was > 0.6% out.

There is no reason for a tablet (or any PC/phone) to have a clock 
generator with super accuracy, it's simply wasted expense when an 
accuracy of <1% will do for the majority of tasks.  That's why 
professional sound cards have an option to use the clock from an 
incoming signal (rather than the internal one) to keep everything in sync.

Try playing the same song (or your tick recording) on several different 
devices at the same time, you'll find they likely drift apart noticeably 
after only a minute or two.

You could try recording the speaking clock as a reference, that is 
probably more accurate than your tablet.


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From: Orchid Win7 v1
Subject: Re: 1 GHz CPU and it still cannot time things properly.
Date: 30 May 2012 05:17:34
Message: <4fc5e5ae$1@news.povray.org>
On 30/05/2012 08:57 AM, scott wrote:

> Try playing the same song (or your tick recording) on several different
> devices at the same time, you'll find they likely drift apart noticeably
> after only a minute or two.

And here I was thinking that even cheap quartz oscillators are quite 
accurate...


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From: scott
Subject: Re: 1 GHz CPU and it still cannot time things properly.
Date: 30 May 2012 07:01:59
Message: <4fc5fe27$1@news.povray.org>
>> Try playing the same song (or your tick recording) on several different
>> devices at the same time, you'll find they likely drift apart noticeably
>> after only a minute or two.
>
> And here I was thinking that even cheap quartz oscillators are quite
> accurate...

Even cheap quartz oscillators are too expensive to just throw at a 
device like a tablet.  The audio clock is likely derived from elsewhere 
with whatever divide-down ratio was cheapest to implement (the frequency 
will likely not even be designed to be spot on 44100 if the numbers 
don't work out nicely).


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