ChristineKling
Veteran Member
Completely agree. Mine has only navigation tools on it, and is not used to test new pieces of hardware/software, browse the web looking for things, or anything else other than running the boat.
I don't do automatic upgrades for any software, including Windows itself, and I set the network interfaces to "metered" both so it does not eat up my LTE data, but so it only downloads critical upgrades, and restricts other programs from doing the same.
I do try to keep it updated with as recent updates and patches as possible to prevent any issues with malware and the like, but I do those BEFORE a trip by a week, not during
It should be treated the same way you treat your autopilot or MFD - upgrade only when there is a bug or issue that you are worried about. The rest of the time, leave it alone and let it do its job.
I also will say that relying on one PC has been a bad idea for a long time. I've seen just about every piece of software out there navigation-wise crash at some point, usually silently. If it is sending out course/route data, eventually the autopilot should alert you (several don't!) and you can then figure out what happened. But if it can't be salvaged quickly, and you rely on it for driving routes, then having a second one is a good measure of redundancy.
The other challenge with two PCs is that most navigation software sucks when it comes to keeping the two in sync. That has improved both in CE and TZ in the last year or so, but there are still some minor gaps.
Steve - Thank you for this post and your earlier comments on this thread. Your suggestion to use two ethernet ports per computer, one for the Furuno network and the other for the Internet connection and all other systems was brilliant. And it was simultaneously suggested by another tech guru friend we were Skyping with. From that conversation, I also realized we needed a second computer not only for redundancy, but also because the distance for the cable run from the helm computer to the two fly bridge screens was going to be around 15 meters (not good for HDMI), and we wanted to put the USB-based Furuno MCU 004 up there.
I understand the idea of wanting to keep the navigation computers as single use machines, but we have been intending to put our Maretron N2K View and Victron Connect software on these computers for monitoring purposes. Is this what you mean by other stuff for "running the boat" in your comment above? We will also have a YDNU-02 USB Gateway connected at Wayne's office, and he can plug his laptop into the system there as well as the N2K Diagnostic meter that is on its way for updating, tweaking and testing. But for day to day viewing, we have been planning to have it all on the nav computers.
Of course we have 3 iPads and 2 phones, as well. We had a friend in the South Pacific who had sailed from France to Australia, cruising for over 10 years crisscrossing the Pacific, and all he used to navigate was an android phone. On our last boat, all we had was a single RayMarine E7 and our mobile devices while we we crisscrossed the Pacific, as well. We are going to consider ourselves super spoiled with this new boat, but the complexity is adding a whole new hurdle.
Christine
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