rec.autos.simulators

by **Andre Warring** » Fri, 01 Aug 2003 17:09:51

Since a couple of weeks I have a weird problem which I can't seem to
fix, even reinstalling windows didn't help :-/

When I load GPL and start the race, the fps varies rapidly from 36 to
about 10.. The reason is obvious, my HD is doing 'something' like a
madman, allthough everything allready is loaded. It takes about 1
minute before the loading stops and then I'm having a constant 36fps
again.

The same problem with F1C and Netkar.
It's kind of annoying that you have to wait a minute before you can
really start to race, especially with online races :-/

Specs:
P4 1.6
Radeon 9700
512mb
2 x 20gig HD connected on the same IDE cable, removing the other HD
didn't fix the problem

Andre

by **Martin Granbe** » Fri, 01 Aug 2003 17:56:58

Turned off System Restore?

/Martin

by **Gerald Moo** » Fri, 01 Aug 2003 22:38:05

> my HD is doing 'something' like a
> madman, allthough everything allready is loaded. It takes about 1
> minute before the loading stops and then I'm having a constant 36fps
> again.

I have had similar problems with various computers in the past.
Usually it is some kind of indexing service or virus scanner running
in the background. Don't know if "end it all" or whatever would help
(I've never tried it) but I would take the general approach of making
sure that all background tasks/services are shut down and then saying
a little prayer that it goes away.

It might also help to defrag if you haven't lately. Perhaps your swap
file is heavily fragmented?

Good luck,
Gerald

by **Andre Warring** » Fri, 01 Aug 2003 22:19:07

Uhm.. turned of what? :-/
Where can I turn this off?
If you mean kill all the background processes, yes I use enditall..

Andre

by **Andre Warring** » Fri, 01 Aug 2003 22:27:47

I did a defrag on one of my 20gig drives last week.
Set it on defrag at 01:00 am, turned on the screen at 10:00am and it
was on 30%.. so it would take me a couple of days defragging both
HD's.. I can't leave GPL that long :-/

Andre

by **Mike Beaucham** » Sat, 02 Aug 2003 05:16:20

That doesn't sound good at all. I had a similar problem a few years ago
playing CMR2. Every 5 seconds EXACTLY, the game would pause for a solid
second! I figured something must be trying to do something every 5 seconds.
So I checked what was running, and realized that some applications relating
to my old video card were still installed and probably trying to look for
the video card or access it.

There's also the possibility of other programs running for you. Stuff like
Kazaa and other shitty filesharing programs when you close them don't
actually close, so you could still be sharing all your .mp3s and such while
trying to play GPL. That's not good..

What else could it be.. hmm.. Maybe a virus, some sort of Trojan trying to
do something big time.

Mike
http://mikebeauchamp.com

by **Andre Warring** » Sat, 02 Aug 2003 07:38:19

On Thu, 31 Jul 2003 10:02:27 -0700, Fred Abberline

>It shouldn't take anywhere near that long for a 20gb HD. An hour or
>two at most. You have a HD problem. Have you run a surface scan on it?
>Checked for any boot sector virus? Looks to me like a new HD is in
>your future.

It's not the HD - both HD's take that long, and before this I had 1
40gig HD which took about 2 years to defrag..
I don't know if this is related, but I have a 40speed cdrom drive, and
installing a cd takes about 15 minutes :-/

Andre

by **bertran** » Sat, 02 Aug 2003 20:27:34

> On Thu, 31 Jul 2003 10:02:27 -0700, Fred Abberline

> >It shouldn't take anywhere near that long for a 20gb HD. An hour or
> >two at most. You have a HD problem. Have you run a surface scan on it?
> >Checked for any boot sector virus? Looks to me like a new HD is in
> >your future.

> It's not the HD - both HD's take that long, and before this I had 1
> 40gig HD which took about 2 years to defrag..
> I don't know if this is related, but I have a 40speed cdrom drive, and
> installing a cd takes about 15 minutes :-/

Sound like you're running both cd-rom and HD in PIO mode and not DMA, check
in
device manager.

by **Darryl Johnso** » Sat, 02 Aug 2003 23:10:10

Fred Abberline wrote in

> On this day of our lord, Thu, 31 Jul 2003 15:27:47 +0200, Andre

>>I did a defrag on one of my 20gig drives last week.
>>Set it on defrag at 01:00 am, turned on the screen at 10:00am and
>>it was on 30%.. so it would take me a couple of days defragging
>>both HD's.. I can't leave GPL that long :-/

>>Andre

> It shouldn't take anywhere near that long for a 20gb HD. An hour
> or two at most. You have a HD problem. Have you run a surface scan
> on it? Checked for any boot sector virus? Looks to me like a new
> HD is in your future.

Andre,

Do you have a virus checker running? I know mine will kick in every
once in a while (if I forget and leave it running during a defrag),
and the whole defrag operation resets and starts back at the
beginning again. That can make it seem like your defrag operation is
taking forever to run. Incidentally, I have a 20GB drive and Windows
XP Home, and a defrag takes me about five minutes. Mind you, I do
this about every week or so, so things aren't too badly out of whack.
Obviously it will take longer for the defrag job to run if the disk
is a "mess" when it starts -- simply because it has more to do.

The other option, mentioned by others, is that your hardware just
isn't set to optimal settings. It soulds like everything connected to
your drives is running slower than it ought to, including your CD-ROM
throughput.

Why don't you start by telling us what your BIOS settings for your
drives are, and what your system specs are? You can download a copy
of "SiSoftware Sandra" from a number of sites and it will tell you
more than you ever wanted to know about your hardware and software,
if you don't already know this stuff.

Good luck!
--
Darryl

by **Gerry Aitke** » Sun, 03 Aug 2003 06:03:18

> What else could it be.. hmm.. Maybe a virus, some sort of Trojan trying to
> do something big time.

Sounds like a network creeper. How are you connected to the internet,
Andre, by cable modem?

Gerry

by **Andre Warring** » Sun, 03 Aug 2003 07:40:08

This could be it.. for both my cdroms and both my HD's DMA is checked
off.. but when I enable it I get 'Enabling DMA may damage your
hardware' message..
Is this really the case or is it safe enough to just try it, without
the possibility of an HD crash??

Andre

by **Andre Warring** » Sun, 03 Aug 2003 07:41:44

On Fri, 01 Aug 2003 14:10:10 GMT, Darryl Johnson

>Why don't you start by telling us what your BIOS settings for your
>drives are, and what your system specs are? You can download a copy
>of "SiSoftware Sandra" from a number of sites and it will tell you
>more than you ever wanted to know about your hardware and software,
>if you don't already know this stuff.

>Good luck!

Thanks for that long answer Daryll :) I'll download Sandra and post
the specs here!

Andre

by **Andre Warring** » Sun, 03 Aug 2003 07:42:37

On Fri, 01 Aug 2003 22:03:18 +0100, Gerry Aitken

>> What else could it be.. hmm.. Maybe a virus, some sort of Trojan trying to
>> do something big time.

>Sounds like a network creeper. How are you connected to the internet,
>Andre, by cable modem?

>Gerry

Yup, cable modem.. why? And what is network creeper?

Andre

by **Gerry Aitke** » Sun, 03 Aug 2003 16:08:19

> On Fri, 01 Aug 2003 22:03:18 +0100, Gerry Aitken

>>>What else could it be.. hmm.. Maybe a virus, some sort of Trojan trying to
>>>do something big time.

>>Sounds like a network creeper. How are you connected to the internet,
>>Andre, by cable modem?

>>Gerry

> Yup, cable modem.. why? And what is network creeper?

> Andre

VERY IMPORTANT: have you recently shared any drives? Network creepers
get in through these shares. Only share files, and even then it's safer
to password or make them read only.

You could well have one of these, going by the evidence, so do a scan of
the whole system with an up to date scanner, find out which bleeder you
have, and blow it to the stone age, son. :)

Good luck

Gerry

by **Gerry Aitke** » Sun, 03 Aug 2003 16:09:54

>> On Fri, 01 Aug 2003 22:03:18 +0100, Gerry Aitken

>>>> What else could it be.. hmm.. Maybe a virus, some sort of Trojan
>>>> trying to
>>>> do something big time.

>>> Sounds like a network creeper. How are you connected to the internet,
>>> Andre, by cable modem?

>>> Gerry

>> Yup, cable modem.. why? And what is network creeper?

>> Andre

> VERY IMPORTANT: have you recently shared any drives? Network creepers
> get in through these shares. Only share files, and even then it's safer
> to password or make them read only.

> You could well have one of these, going by the evidence, so do a scan of
> the whole system with an up to date scanner, find out which bleeder you
> have, and blow it to the stone age, son. :)

> Good luck

> Gerry

The above advice is for 98, but you're using XP, yes/no?

Gerry

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