rec.autos.simulators

Can anyone give me a clue?

i race GPL offline=no prob
i surf the net=no prob
other games or prog's on the PC = no prob
i go to race online and for the most part=no prob

now i  go to a league race, during practice all seems fine then FReEZE
not a lockup,  not a crash, i can gt out of the frozen screen with
double Cnt-Alt-Del...but that reboots the sys of course.

so i get back in, and sometimes i can do 15 laps (pick a track) last
nite (Sarthe) it froze again immmediately. reboot-

back to race, change from setup to go to***pit- freeze- reboot

back to race and just make the grid and voila! no prob!

can anyone tell me where to begin looking?
thanks
Bo Bruce

Do you have any firewall software running? ZoneAlarm in particular does not
get along with GPL on line. The usual symptom is you can drive for a while
(often a very short time) then the screen freezes but the sound continues
and you need to reboot.

If you are running ZoneAlarm or similar, try shutting it off then trying GPL
online. There are apparently workarounds, but none of them have worked for
me so I just leave ZoneAlarm off while GPL'ing online.

Sounds like a cpu/gfx card overheat due to:-

1. Racing online in GPL puts more strain on the system than off-line
does.

2. Sarthe is well known for being a track that puts even more strain
than usual on the system.

3. So put those to together, and trouble is brewing.

Solutions:-

A. Improve cooling in your system.

B. You can turn down the gfx resolution a notch or two.

C. Try the lite version of Sarthe.

Apologies if you know all that already.

Good luck

Gerry

well thanks for the guesses, makes me feel better at least i'm on the
right road.

i do have a FW (Tiny Personal) and have tried it both on and off with
similar results. sometimes i race, sometimes i freeze. and i dont
overclock-

as to gpx//cpu... i only have had this prob since switching to cable,
yet no one else seems to have the same issue.

a lite version of Sarthe, but what about goodwood, Kyalami, Zandy? all
intermintent freezes, yet N'ring, mosport, rouen, and solitude (to
name a few) have been fine! its too weird.

how about cable users overload? i've read that as more subscibers
join, the bottleneck gets sqeezed. is this happening? i live in a city
of 50k, and the neighborhood is all residential, typical small city
housing-

Sounds like a cpu/gfx card overheat due to:-

1. Racing online in GPL puts more strain on the system than off-line
does.

2. Sarthe is well known for being a track that puts even more strain
than usual on the system.

3. So put those to together, and trouble is brewing.

Solutions:-

A. Improve cooling in your system.

B. You can turn down the gfx resolution a notch or two.

C. Try the lite version of Sarthe.

Apologies if you know all that already.

Good luck

Gerry

Sounds like a cpu/gfx card overheat due to:-

1. Racing online in GPL puts more strain on the system than off-line
does.

2. Sarthe is well known for being a track that puts even more strain
than usual on the system.

3. So put those to together, and trouble is brewing.

Solutions:-

A. Improve cooling in your system.

B. You can turn down the gfx resolution a notch or two.

C. Try the lite version of Sarthe.

Apologies if you know all that already.

Good luck

Gerry

Kill ZoneAlarm.

--

Fester

"Is it that we need a nobrainer Linux desktop OS for people with no
brains or should people do a little more reading and smarten up?"
                                         from alt.linux.mandrake NG

writes:

Do your ethernet card and Video card share the same IRQ?  They could be
fighting for 'cycles'...

Eldred
--
Dale Earnhardt, Sr. R.I.P. 1951-2001
Homepage - http://www.umich.edu/~epickett
GPLRank - under construction...

Never argue with an idiot.  He brings you down to his level, then beats you
with experience...
Remove SPAM-OFF to reply.

A lack of available bandwidth won't cause your problem, it's clearly a
local system failure.

Since it only started happening after you got cable, and if you didn't
have a NIC installed before that, I'm with Eldred,  you've got an IRQ
conflict with your ethernet card and either your sound card or video
card.

Force your NIC to a unique IRQ and I'll wager every penny I have that
your problem will go away.

jWouldn't hurt to throw an extra fan or two in the case either though.

KFG

What resolution do you run online?

I'm sure some of the guys who have been around here a looooong time will have a
better memory, but wasn't there something that had to be added to the ini file
for cable?  Seems like I remember it from about a year ago.

Also, someone mentioned here not long ago about some cable providers having a
cap on bandwith, for extended times, to combat people trying to run websites.
Something about the cable company reading the tremendous amount of info going
up and down the pipe while racing online that makes it think that a website is
being used.

Don't know, I might be talking out of my hat.  Oh well, I'm sure someone will
let me know...
Just my 0.02

Michael

Resolution onlilne (same off) is 800X600

i checked and have no IRQ conflicts (at least that are obvious in
device manager)

also in regard to suggestion of overheating, why would it allow me to
complete a 1/2 hour race immediately after  the 3 or 4 freezes? if
there was overheating, there was no time for cooling.

how about this?
can a cable modem clog up? i mean does it have any kind of buffer? teh
couple times i have been able to get back on line was while rebooting
i turned the cable modem off until i was back to desktop.

my 2d guess is the GPLEA eagle.. i was thinking that maybe (i've never
put this together) but possibly the 'randomness is caused by the
nearness of a HiRes graphic intense eagle. i've switched back to the
old one and will test it later tonite.

thanks to everyone for your assistance! it is greatly appreciated....
bo

I have a cable modem, I've had the freezes you describe online in gpl. I
have heat sensors, and the one on the gfx card said it was too hot on
each occasion. I dropped the resolution for online and the problem went
away. Try it, if it works you've cracked it, if not, nothing lost.

BTW, what's your system specs and what gfx setting are on in GPL?

No buffer that i'm aware of. BTW, are you racing on a server with the
'extra cars' patch when this happens? If you don't know the answer to
that, then you're not.

As far as I'm aware, carset problems are more likely to cause a CTD than
a freeze.

Gerry

  You can reset your modem and that can be beneficial.  Usually there is a
reset button on the back.  My old USR cable has it inside a small hole so I
have to use a very small***driver and press it for about 10 seconds.
  Also there is a procedure for powering down and reconnecting your modem.
Call your ISP for the proper method but basically, if I remember rightly you
do this...
1 disconect the modem from your computer
 2 turn off the modem  for about 2 to 5 minutes
 3 power up the modem...let it blink away till it finds the connection
again.
  4.  re-connect to the computer.
  5.  You may also try using winipcfg and releasing the IP and then renewing
it.  Good luck.
dave henrie

sheepishly i am here to close the issue....

it was inded the hi-res eagle causing the freeze's ...

thanks to all for your helpand suggestions. i really learned quite
alot about my system, the internet, connections and GPL config's from
all the ideas. so all was not a lost cause even for so simple an
matter.

what a great group of folks live here-

a most appreciative member of  the online racing community,
Bo  Bruce