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Rainbird Nimbus help!

6 posts
  1. Conly Stephenson
    Conly Stephenson avatar
    1 posts
    4/9/2013 2:04 PM
    Our irrigation system is a Rainbird nimbus that was installed in 1998. Has worked great for many years,however the computer it is installed on finally bit the dust. The old computer was running windows 95. We were able to successfully load the software and transfer our data to a newer computer running windows XP. Got everything to work but occasionally get various error messages at different times. It may work fine for a couple of days then an error message will pop up causing the software to "lock up" and need to be rebooted. Anyone been able to do this successfully or give any tips on getting rid of these messages. Rainbird wanted several thousand dollars for new computer and updated software when all we really needed was a new computer. Any help? Thanks.

    Morgan Stephenson
    Tobacco Road Golf Club



  2. Jerry Lemons
    Jerry Lemons avatar
    0 posts
    4/9/2013 3:04 PM
    Morgan, You might find an old version of Windows that is compatible with the rainbird version. Since all you are running is nimbus, you wont need all the new bells and whistles that windows has developed.

    Don't forget to back up first!

    Jerry



  3. Keith Lamb
    Keith Lamb avatar
    3 posts
    4/9/2013 5:04 PM
    I've seen virus protection do this. Disable or remove it. Shouldn't be a computer you use to browse the internet on anyway. Check what software is running and remove anything that you don't need. Consult someone who knows more than I can tell you. Bare minimum is the key. If you could get Nimbus II it would help quite a bit.



  4. McDaniel Gregory B
    McDaniel Gregory B avatar
    4/9/2013 8:04 PM
    I had the same version and bought a new Dell in 2005 running Windows XP. I ran Mcafee virus software and still used the computer for everything else including internet access. I had to buy a serial to usb convertor plug for the call box and had to load and reinstall that port if the power ever failed. I used a battery backup and a good surge protector and never turned the computer off, so having to deal with reinstalling the port and getting it to work right was seldom an issue. I'm one of those guys that can always fix my own computer problems, but I can't always tell someone else how I did it, I just know I got it to work! I will say that on one occasion I found a head that ran really dirty on a par 5. Lots of heads on that hole and it ran with an individual hole program I had, but evidently was not running with my grouped hole program. I reentered the data for that hole and it worked fine after that. I didn't notice it being dry there because there was plenty of overlap from other heads, but found it quite interesting that the head had not run for a good while. We had about 1000 Rainbird 900's and we were never closed, so knowing whether a head or 2 that were not on greens wasn't working when they logged as running every night was not so easy to catch. I ran that system for 10 years and never tired of tweaking it. Loved the dry run feature and enjoyed changing things up to make it run at peak efficiency and effectiveness. You should be able to either run XP, or run the program in XP compatibility mode. I hope you get it working.

    Sincerely,

    Greg



  5. David Ohren
    David Ohren avatar
    0 posts
    4/10/2013 8:04 AM
    Find yourself an older cpu or have one built to that spec and a copy of Windows95 or 98 (ebay). Use as a dedicated irrigation computer and only install Nimbus, so you have no potential conflicts. We did this several years ago and were still cooking. Spent about $600, our IT guy built the computer from scratch I think he got everything online.

    Dave Ohren
    Willow Glen Golf Club



  6. Conly Stephenson
    Conly Stephenson avatar
    1 posts
    4/10/2013 8:04 AM
    Thanks for the info guys. The computer does have some virus protection on it but is not used for internet. Irrigation only. I will try that to see if it helps and if not I'll try to go the older CPU route. Thanks again for your replies.

    Morgan Stephenson
    Tobacco Road Golf Club



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