rec.autos.simulators

I am having a weird problem in my racing sims.  Peridocally the game
seems to minimize to the task bar blanking the screen.  In SCC it comes
back in a second or two, but in NR03 you have click on the task bar to
get it back (caused major crash at Martinsville.) It seems like the
machine goes off to do something or check something and then comes
back.  I don't (so far) see this in anything but racing...so it seems
like it must have something to do with the wheel.  Also some of the
programmed wheel button functions went away.  It was suggested that the
wheel may have power fluctuations.

This just started a couple of days ago.  The only change to the
computer has been a wireless mouse and keyboard a couple of weeks ago.

Wheel is a Black Momo about 2+ years old.  Wheel is 'on' all the time
the computer is whether racing or not.  I am not a hardware guy so I
could use some suggestions as to what to try.

Any suggestions?  Should I reinstall the wheel software?  Should I look
for a new power supply for the wheel? I don't mind getting a new wheel,
but if I don't have to spend the money...  Any idea's how I should try
to troubleshoot?  Could it be the new wireless keyboard and mouse?
HELP!!!!!!!!!

First thing I'd try is disable this software. Mouse and keyboard should still
work, you'll just miss special functions, like mouse gestures etc.

Are you using all the wheel's buttons? Have you tried all buttons on the wheel
to see whether any single one or a combination might be responsible?

If that's not it, have you noticed this happening mainly in corners perhaps? On
my LWFF if I pull too heavily on the wheel in lefthanders, one of the solder
lugs on the PCB in the wheel makes contact with a washer and that has the same
effect as if I had depressed one of the buttons on the left (any one, or all
together). So, the car will shift down and the driver will look to the left at
the same time - very disconcerting <g> - because I have it programmed so that I
shift down using a button on the left and also look left by pulling the paddle.

I have to cover that solder lug with insulating tape to prevent it from making
contact. I don't know whether this is possible on a Momo, though.

--
Achim
http://AchimT.flog.com

Turned out the wife had done some kind of update from HP for the
printer/scanner the night before this started.  Restored to before that
update and (knock on wood) so far so good with about 2 hours of test
racing without any problems....  A teckie friend of mine said he had
heard of problems with HP software always checking things or trying to
go to the internet causing some problems...  Here's hoping.....

I'm betting pound to a penny it's drivers for your keyboard.  I had just as
you describe when using a MOMO force and associated profiling software after
I installed software for this here keyboard.  It's not wireless, but it is
MS and has shortcut buttons.
I found that even though I uninstalled the driver software the shortcut
buttons still work so it's totally unnecessary software anyways!!

Best of luck...

Mark
at V8 Thunder dot com

Just to share my frustration (thanks for sharing) and maybe this will
someday be useful to somebody else...

It doesn't seem that it was the mouse keyboard/ software, I took it out
and it still dropped out.  The screaming was not pretty.  So
tonight....

I still was thinking about the HP printer stuff.  After searching
around I found 1 DAT file left from the update that I thought I had
deleted.  (It started acting up the day after the update.)  So I
cleaned up the HD, removed the printer and all software, took out all
the Momo files and profiler, ran Adaware and Spybot, defragged.  Put
the printer back on without the update, installed the newest Wingman
software.

If any of you are praying people....  So far my game profiles seem back
and it hasn't dropped out yet....