Delta Virtual Airlines Water Cooler | PC Support |
Serious problem w/ freezing, extremely frustrated!. |
DVA2039
First Officer, B767-300
Joined on November 27 2004
Double Century Club
"Power is altitude" Northeastern United States
207 legs, 488.4 hours
37 legs,
95.4 hours online 6 legs,
9.9 hours ACARS
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Posted onPost created on
January 29 2005 06:04 ET by Andrew Harris
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If anyone out there can help me on this one, I would GREATLY appreciate it. I own a Dell Pentium 4 processor w/ 1023 MB memory, and an ATI Radeon9800 pro graphics card. This system is now about 6 mths. old, and a lemon.
Ever since day one, I have had issues w/ this system. About a mth. after purchase the whole system froze. Tried pressing contl, alt, delete, nothing. Tried pressing the reset button, still didn't work. Had to unplug system to stop it. Since then, when playing FS2004 the game was freezing for 2 seconds every minute. Went back to Gateway, absolutely useless. In Bda, huge problem w/ customer service. So I had a friend sweep my system. We had a very sophisticated virus that he found and removed. But I still had a problem w/ freezing, OK so not a "huge" problem, learned to live w/ it.
The other night I installed AS2004 weather. Not thinking, I also activated Jeppesen real world weather, and right after takeoff the whole system froze solid again. Once again I had to unplug the system to free it up, but now it freezes for 4 seconds, for every 53 second cycle. I have timed this, and it doesn't change. I don't know a whole lot about computers, but I have a feeling my motherboard may be damaged. I have gone back to Gateway (never again), and they are jerking me around. I have requested a new motherboard, w/ no satisfaction. Dell has nothing to say (which has really surprised me), and now I am just feeling EXTREMELY frustrated and angry. I rely on my FS fix, it is one of the few escapes that I have. We have had a very difficult couple of years, lots of things have gone wrong, and now I feel like I am being deprived of the ONE thing that I really enjoy, flying. We have even gone as far as to "consider" purchasing another computer, it is getting that frustrating.
I don't have a whole lot of addons, scenery, aircraft, etc...., and we generally don't serf the net. My wife uses it for e-mail, I use it to fly and that's pretty much it. If there is anyone who has had this problem and fixed it I would really appreciate having some suggestions. Short of a new purchase, (and certainly not from Gateway) I really don't know what to do. THANK YOU for your help. Andrew Harris
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DVA1892
Senior Captain, MD-11
Joined on September 13 2004
DVA Fifteen-Year Anniversary
Eurocap Club
Online Triple Century Club
White Pearl Accomplishment
Quatercentenary Club
Everett Century Club
"Fly Douglas Jets!" Buenos Aires AR
460 legs, 1,384.1 hours
336 legs,
1,086.5 hours online 271 legs,
726.6 hours ACARS 12 legs,
24.6 hours event
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Posted onPost created on
January 29 2005 06:58 ET by Gaston Doval
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Andrew,
There's something that might not be software bothering there. This could be a hardware problem. If the freezing continues after serveral cycle, my suggestion would it's either a video card problem or a Hard disk problem. My suggestion first, is that you start with a scandisk to find any physical errors in the disk. Then, continue with a disk defragmentation, to order and organize the info again. Then, if you have a good technician, make him test all the parts seperately if no problem is found. Because this could be generated from a faulty AGP slot, a f**ked up disk surface to low voltage to the motherboard and disks.
Lemme know if I can be more of help
Cheers!
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DVA1190
Senior Captain, B777-200
OLP
Joined on April 21 2003
Everett 250 Club
Online Quadruple Century Club
Quincentenary Club
50 State Club
DVA Twenty-Year Anniversary
"Never try, never fail" Greenville, SC
524 legs, 1,777.8 hours
490 legs,
1,650.8 hours online 144 legs,
373.3 hours ACARS 35 legs,
89.2 hours event
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Posted onPost created on
January 29 2005 07:00 ET by David Schaum
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Let me start by saying many different processes can be happening here that causes the periodic stutter in your system, and that it's most likely not hardware.
I'll assume that your computer works fine and that you only have this 4 second freeze while using FS9?
If that's the case, let?s look at a few things because I have a 9800 Pro as well and there are some critical settings to make sure you have right:
1. Make sure your display resolution in FS9 matches the setting you have in the ATI display settings.
2. Make sure in FS9 under Settings>Display>Hardware, that only Transform and Lighting is checked. Do not check Render to texture and do not check Anti Aliasing
3. In the ATI settings, under the 3D tab, check Direct 3D, and check Use custom settings, then under Custom button, select 4X for Anti-Aliasing and 8X for Anisotropic Filtering. Set Texture Preference to High Quality, Mipmap Detail level to High Quality, set Wait for Vertical Sync to Application Preference and TRUFORM to always off
4. Make sure you don't have any screensavers turned on.
5. Use a solid color as your desktop. No pretty pictures as they eat resources in the background
Now, do you have the Autosave DLL in the Modules file of FS9? If you do, this will cause the momentary stick on the screen when it does a "save" every 60 seconds. (I have mine set to save every sixty seconds) You can change this if you want and I can teach you that later if you don't know how.
Do you run Squawk box on the same computer? If you do, when it updates, it can cause the system to pause for a second. Believe it or not, I have a second computer next to my flight simulator computer that has Squawk box running on it so my flight sim computer isn't affected. I also keep my flight charts on the second computer for viewing while flying. The point is, everything you can shut down or get rid of during flight simming will free up resources and prevent freezing of your system.
Do you have a virus protection? If so, shut if off while flying. Do you have any software that checks for periodic updates? For example, I have an HP PC2410 all in one printer/fax etc. I found that when I do a ctr/alt/del and look at my processes, that hp has three programs working in the system background that are checking for updates and who knows what else. I close these every time I boot up my system when I'm going to fly. This opens up more memory and releases processing power.
Anyway, I hope I've given you some good advice and that you find some of these items helpful. One last thing, you may want to check your Display Settings under Scenery, Aircraft and Weather. Everyone here at DVA will have their own preferences for these settings, but depending on what?s important to you, you may be able to increase your speed on the video card by lower some less important settings.
Good luck!
David SchaumSenior Captain, B777-200
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DVA1190
Senior Captain, B777-200
OLP
Joined on April 21 2003
Everett 250 Club
Online Quadruple Century Club
Quincentenary Club
50 State Club
DVA Twenty-Year Anniversary
"Never try, never fail" Greenville, SC
524 legs, 1,777.8 hours
490 legs,
1,650.8 hours online 144 legs,
373.3 hours ACARS 35 legs,
89.2 hours event
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Posted onPost created on
January 29 2005 07:13 ET by David Schaum
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Something else that came to mind have I hit save new message. The freeze you are referring to when you had AS2004 and FS9's weather update is a perfect example of two different programs on your computer were trying to work and update at the same time. Are you on a cable modem or dial up for your internet? The speed of your internet connection and the amount of traffic online when flying can also impede on your system.
David SchaumSenior Captain, B777-200
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DVA1190
Senior Captain, B777-200
OLP
Joined on April 21 2003
Everett 250 Club
Online Quadruple Century Club
Quincentenary Club
50 State Club
DVA Twenty-Year Anniversary
"Never try, never fail" Greenville, SC
524 legs, 1,777.8 hours
490 legs,
1,650.8 hours online 144 legs,
373.3 hours ACARS 35 legs,
89.2 hours event
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Posted onPost created on
January 29 2005 07:15 ET by David Schaum
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delete "have I hit" insert "after I hit"
David SchaumSenior Captain, B777-200
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DVA2039
First Officer, B767-300
Joined on November 27 2004
Double Century Club
"Power is altitude" Northeastern United States
207 legs, 488.4 hours
37 legs,
95.4 hours online 6 legs,
9.9 hours ACARS
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Posted onPost created on
January 29 2005 08:02 ET by Andrew Harris
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David, man, I can't thank you enough for all of that advice. I went in and changed the settings exactly how you told me to step by step. And WHAT A DIFFERENCE it has made!! The 4 second feeze has disappeared, at least for now, hopefully it will stay away. There is a minor little skip, but that is no where near an issue for me. I plan to fly from Detroit Metro into Quad Cities this afternoon, and I will see what happens on a full flight. As far as Autosave DLL in the Modules file, is there any way of turning this off, or would you not suggest that? THANK YOU soooo much, David. Andrew Harris
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DVA1070
Senior Captain, B777-200
COMM
Joined on January 28 2003
Online Century Club
Double Century Club
"I believe I can fly" Jeffersonville, IN USA
218 legs, 841.9 hours
182 legs,
778.3 hours online 108 legs,
505.1 hours ACARS 42 legs,
200.5 hours event
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Posted onPost created on
January 29 2005 10:37 ET by Adam Gaweda
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You may also want to try this little utility, called FSAutostart
http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fs2004util&DLID=57040
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DVA2039
First Officer, B767-300
Joined on November 27 2004
Double Century Club
"Power is altitude" Northeastern United States
207 legs, 488.4 hours
37 legs,
95.4 hours online 6 legs,
9.9 hours ACARS
|
Posted onPost created on
January 29 2005 10:40 ET by Andrew Harris
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Well, looks like I spoke too soon. Just completed a flight from KDTW to KMLI, the old glitch is still there. Still freezing every 53 second cycle for length of 4 seconds. David, I thought we had it licked. I still want to thank you for your help. If you or anyone else has any other suggestions please let me know. Andrew Harris
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AFV011
Senior Captain, B777-300
Joined on September 19 2004
GVA 5 Year Anniversary
Online Two Fifty Club
Triple Century Club
Historic Triple Century Club
"Remember...140, 250, and REALLY FAST" Midwestern United States
394 legs, 606.7 hours
274 legs,
430.6 hours online 86 legs,
126.5 hours ACARS 8 legs,
16.0 hours event 501 legs, 763.5 hours total
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Posted onPost created on
January 29 2005 16:27 ET by Michael Carter
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Have you checked to see what background programs are running while flying?
It sounds like something is trying to access or write to the drive at a regular interval, something is trying to update at a regular interval, something is sending a query to another program or component, or possibly there is an IRQ conflict between components. As you said, whatever is causing this, it is a timed event and you'll probably have to track this down by the process of elimination by shutting down background programs one at a time, and examine the IRQ assignments of your devices.
I'm not a computer engineer, but these are some issues I thought of while reading through this thread.
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DVA2039
First Officer, B767-300
Joined on November 27 2004
Double Century Club
"Power is altitude" Northeastern United States
207 legs, 488.4 hours
37 legs,
95.4 hours online 6 legs,
9.9 hours ACARS
|
Posted onPost created on
January 29 2005 20:43 ET by Andrew Harris
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Hey, Michael
Yes, I have checked for any programs that might be running, and I believe (if I have done this correctly) there are no programs running at the same time that FS is activated. I have voice buddy, and live weather updates, but prior to the first shutdown these were not an issue. I have dial up (will be transferring to DSL at some point soon). The only other thing that I can think of is to stop the auto save, but not sure if that is recommended or not, not sure how to access FS9 modules yet. David listed bunch of options which I have tried, but to no avail yet. Another option I have considered is to change the motherboard and update w/ more powerful processor, maybe that would help. Thanks for your suggestion. Andrew
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DVA2039
First Officer, B767-300
Joined on November 27 2004
Double Century Club
"Power is altitude" Northeastern United States
207 legs, 488.4 hours
37 legs,
95.4 hours online 6 legs,
9.9 hours ACARS
|
Posted onPost created on
January 29 2005 20:46 ET by Andrew Harris
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One other thing, I check for adware and defragment on a regular basis. I always run live updates on the virus protection, and am pretty sure these areas are fine.
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DVA1127
Captain, MD-11
Joined on March 03 2003
Online Century Club
Double Century Club
Long Beach Century Club
DVA Fifteen-Year Anniversary
"Nail the speed, Live with the fpm." Western Canada
274 legs, 1,196.8 hours
114 legs,
634.7 hours online 45 legs,
184.7 hours ACARS 352 legs, 1,678.9 hours total
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Posted onPost created on
January 29 2005 22:18 ET by Dennis Bergen
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I can relate to your frustration with your freezing and your new computer. I had a $%^& time with freezing when I got my new rig. FS9 really brought on the freezing but was sometimes intermittant. Really frikken frustrating. Not sure if this relates to your problem but my setting when I booted the computer was at 8x. With the P4 3.o6 and raddy 9700 pro, 2@512 megs Corsair 3500 ram and GB 8INXP mobo, 4 WD HD's . XP pro OS. We figured this was all 8x stuff which it is but when we set to 4x on computer boot, haven't had a freeze since we went into the bios( I think it was the bios) and changed it from 8x to 4x. I got all my stuff so I could over clock the heck out of it and make FS9 sing. The computer and FS9 have been working so well since changing to 4x that I haven't tried to over clock yet. And no freezing. Maybe the computer guys here can better relate what I'm trying to say here in regards to the 4x, 8x on computer boot and where to check for it. My memory is getting really bad ( alzheimers maybe setting in for me lol) bit seems to me I pressed the 'delete' key when I booted and that took me to the settings and changed it.
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DVA1127
Captain, MD-11
Joined on March 03 2003
Online Century Club
Double Century Club
Long Beach Century Club
DVA Fifteen-Year Anniversary
"Nail the speed, Live with the fpm." Western Canada
274 legs, 1,196.8 hours
114 legs,
634.7 hours online 45 legs,
184.7 hours ACARS 352 legs, 1,678.9 hours total
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Posted onPost created on
January 29 2005 22:43 ET by Dennis Bergen
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Ok, I restarted my computer and pressed the delete key when re booting. It took me into a bunch of settings. I went to Advanced Bios Features, then there is a line that says Flexible AGP 8X. This is where we had 8x and we set to 4X. Worked great since then. I am not too computer savy but I know these settings should not be messed with unless you know what you're doing. You might have a look to see what your computer might be set to though. Good luck. Hope you find your solution.
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DVA2039
First Officer, B767-300
Joined on November 27 2004
Double Century Club
"Power is altitude" Northeastern United States
207 legs, 488.4 hours
37 legs,
95.4 hours online 6 legs,
9.9 hours ACARS
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Posted onPost created on
January 30 2005 06:36 ET by Andrew Harris
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Dennis, I have windows xp home edition. Maybe this is why pressing the delete key doesn't seem to work. However, there are two functions that flash quickly when I do reboot, F2 Setup, F12 Reboot Menu. I have gone into both menus but I don't see anything like what you were referring to , Advanced Bios Features. Is it under a certain heading? I have been up good portion of night trying once and for all to figure this crazy system out. Thanks for your help. Andrew
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DVA2039
First Officer, B767-300
Joined on November 27 2004
Double Century Club
"Power is altitude" Northeastern United States
207 legs, 488.4 hours
37 legs,
95.4 hours online 6 legs,
9.9 hours ACARS
|
Posted onPost created on
January 31 2005 03:09 ET by Andrew Harris
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OK, if anyone is still reading this (I hope) I managed to change AGP to 4x from 8x. Took off from St. Paul, MSP, flew to FL200, and held a steady course for app. 15 min.. I then reversed my course, and landed on rwy. 4 w/ absolutely no frame freeze. This is very encouraging, but the ultimate test will be airport to airport, because for some reason that is when it tends to have problems. I do not have an independent squawk box, or any other addons at this point. Irregardless of what happens, I really do appreciate all the guys that made a contribution to this thread. Thank you all very much, because I am sure you also have hectic schedules. Andrew
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DVA2039
First Officer, B767-300
Joined on November 27 2004
Double Century Club
"Power is altitude" Northeastern United States
207 legs, 488.4 hours
37 legs,
95.4 hours online 6 legs,
9.9 hours ACARS
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Posted onPost created on
January 31 2005 06:30 ET by Andrew Harris
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I OFFICIALLY GIVE UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can't figure out problem, will replace motherboard and processor. Ends. Andrew
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