OT...I'm back

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

Well, following on from my Windows 7 hassles...it turns out that my trusty Nvidia 8800GTS had actually given up the ghost!

I continued to get graphical errors constantly in W7..lost my patience, reformatted..and went back to XP.

 

I was dissapointed to note, that the problem was even worse in XP than W7...so, off to get a new card!

 

Duly installed and working..Win 7 forgiven, and reinstalled..all working fine!...what a pain the last 72 hrs have been!...but I'm nearly there!!

[Olham 164]

Man, I feel with you! What card did you get?

I am also searching for the "troublemaker" in my system. My system every now and then just drops out.

Sometimes it's only OFF freezing, with the sound as an endless loop. Then I can still get out of it via

Task Manager.

But sometimes, my system has a total crash (In OFF, in Photoshop, in the internet).

 

I have bought a 90,- Euro mains power supply with 600 W - it still happens.

Now a friend said, I should download a program for checking the DDR Ram memory.

I'll do that tomorrow, when I have the time.

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

Hi Olham

 

I got the Nvidia GTS 450...was all my budget would stretch too...but it seems to be fine

 

Yes, random lockups and freezes are so damn frustrating!!...I share your pain!

Edited October 22, 2010 by UK_Widowmaker

[Slartibartfast 153]

Welcome back old chap... must admit after 5 months off with a new joystick and I still can't hit the side of a barn at 2 paces with a shotgun... Last night flew a test flight and managed with the entire belt from a spandau to only lightly smoke a BE2C... and there where times I was so close I could have hit him with the kitchen sink... if I had thrown it at him...

[Flyby PC 23]

what a pain the last 72 hrs have been!...but I'm nearly there!!

 

Oh you really think so? Mooooohaaahaahaahaahaaaaaa!

 

(Just in jest UKW, - hope you're sailing into clear blue water soon. )

[Olham 164]

Slartibartfast, do you have "Wind" switched on in "Workshop" - that could make it difficult.

Also, when you fly an early, 1-gun German craft, it may take longer to destroy a craft.

 

Best way is to go really close (without colliding). You'll get back there - don't give up.

[Slartibartfast 153]

Slartibartfast, do you have "Wind" switched on in "Workshop" - that could make it difficult.

Also, when you fly an early, 1-gun German craft, it may take longer to destroy a craft.

 

Best way is to go really close (without colliding). You'll get back there - don't give up.

 

Herr Olham I have so much fun flying OFF that sometimes I do collide with the Crumpet in my poor Ennie... and I must have been through 6 pilots this week already... I always try to get in as close as possible. I think the difference is that in the Strutter the gun is on the Centreline where as the gun on the Ennie is offset to the right... but as you say I will get there. Just Practice Practice Practice.

[Slartibartfast 153]

Whatta relief, I couldn't figure if my piss-poor marksmanship was the result of my youthful fantasies, falling off my motorcycle to often, or my advancing years

 

PS . . .Hard to believe, I was once a Machine Gunner on a Helicopter in Viet Nam

 

Hey me I used to ride motorcycles and was a qualified Sniper... 10 out of 10 out to 800metres everytime!!! Must be the Motorbikes... and the falling off!!!

[Von Paulus 8]

Man, I feel with you! What card did you get?

I am also searching for the "troublemaker" in my system. My system every now and then just drops out.

Sometimes it's only OFF freezing, with the sound as an endless loop. Then I can still get out of it via

Task Manager.

But sometimes, my system has a total crash (In OFF, in Photoshop, in the internet).

 

I have bought a 90,- Euro mains power supply with 600 W - it still happens.

Now a friend said, I should download a program for checking the DDR Ram memory.

I'll do that tomorrow, when I have the time.

Download memtest86 and burn a cd with it. Boot the computer from CD/DVD, and let it test it.

But if you don't have it any blue screen and just freezes, it mightn't be memory. But test it anyway.

The kind of freezes you're having are not easy to diagnostic. It can be almost anything, since software, motherboard, graphic card, etc.

Is your system overclocked? What about the temperatures? Are they normal?

[tranquillo 10]

It must have been very frustrating to have all that trouble especially after we all told you how great win 7 is.

Still..........got there in the end and back in the air once again .

[RAF_Louvert 101]

.

 

Welcome back WM, great news about getting your W7 issues sorted out. Now get in there and fly, Fly, FLY!

 

.

[Rugbyfan1972 1]

 

PS . . .Hard to believe, I was once a Machine Gunner on a Helicopter in Viet Nam

 

UncleAl,

 

From what I have seen in films and documentaries, that only involved spraying the local foliage with a liberal dose of lead. LOL

 

Sorry couldn't resist

 

Thanks

Rugbyfan1972

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

Well, from what little I've seen, it looks a dangerous Job

[Olham 164]

Widowmaker, did you solve the problems on your rig?

Mine is still crashing sometimes. Checked all cable contacts - nothing.

I wonder, if a rig would crash often, when some of the memory is broken?

The sim only freezes during long flights, and when I tried to move three files with together

more than 3 GB to another folder at once, the system totally crashed.

Any way to check the memory sticks?

Edited October 23, 2010 by Olham

[Von Paulus 8]

Any way to check the memory sticks?

http://combatace.com/topic/60051-otim-back/page__p__448994#entry448994

[Olham 164]

Ooops - sorry, missed that somehow, von Paulus.

I have the proof now anyway. Windows advised me to check the memory with it's own test,

and now I know, that at least one of the sticks is broken.

I have 4 sticks CORSAIR DOMINATOR with 1 GB each.

The name sounded invincible - but they weren't.

Now I need to find out, which of the 4 is broken???

[Typhoon 5]

Olham:

As von Paulus suggested get memtest86 and remove your memory sticks and test them one at a time.We do this all the time in our shop. Also every time we add memory to a system we run memtest86. We have been burned a couple of times by installing memory that was bad from the get go. Memtest86 is a great program and did I mention that it is free. You can d/l it here:

http://www.memtest86.com/download.html

 

Tony

[Olham 164]

Thanks for all info - so I understand, I can test 1 stick at the time. That makes it a safe method.

Thanks a lot, von Paulus and Typhoon.

[Olham 164]

Guys, I have done several tests now, to really make sure, what the situation is.

Everything is said to be okay! (What a relief!)

 

It seems the problem was caused by the Arctic Freezer Cooler attached on the alloy rib passive cooler of the CPU.

My memory sticks have very high cooling ribs attached, and the Arctic Freezer's fan protector pressed slightly against

the first stick's cooling ribs. I have changed that now, and all tests after that went well.

 

Thanks again for all your help!

[Von Paulus 8]

Guys, I have done several tests now, to really make sure, what the situation is.

Everything is said to be okay! (What a relief!)

 

It seems the problem was caused by the Arctic Freezer Cooler attached on the alloy rib passive cooler of the CPU.

My memory sticks have very high cooling ribs attached, and the Arctic Freezer's fan protector pressed slightly against

the first stick's cooling ribs. I have changed that now, and all tests after that went well.

 

Thanks again for all your help!

Hmmm. I hope so.

Unfortunatelly the memory slots, are in most of the times, close to the CPU. So if you're not using a CPU stock cooler and are using instead a bigger one, problems like these are common. And to add, Corsair memories use big memory passive coolers (like it should be).

[Olham 164]

Damn!!!! The rig crashed down again! Looks like something with the motherboard then, I suppose.

Now I'm thinking of investing 350,- Euro for a new motherboard, CPU and memory.

Whenever you think you could save some money, something will happen to draw it out of you again.

[Herr Prop-Wasche 7]

Sorry to hear of your 'puter problems, Olham. looks like we are stuck in the same proverbial boat!

 

WM--glad to hear you are sorted. Cheers!

[Von Paulus 8]

Damn!!!! The rig crashed down again! Looks like something with the motherboard then, I suppose.

Now I'm thinking of investing 350,- Euro for a new motherboard, CPU and memory.

Whenever you think you could save some money, something will happen to draw it out of you again.

Well, I didn't want to say anything, but... I wasn't convinced the problem could be the one above.

Have you tried memtest with the four sticks at the same time?

Tell me, have you overclocked the CPU?

Have you done any drives update lately?

Also check the hardisks. You must have sata cables. Take them out and mount them again. The ideal situation would be to replace SATA cables.

This is a long shot, but my technical instinct, and it's not always correct, tells me it could be a controller/cable/Hardisk problem.

But that type of freezes, like I've told you before, are sometimes very hard to diagnostic.

But let's not despair.... for now.

Edited October 24, 2010 by Von Paulus

[Olham 164]

Well, I didn't want to say anything, but... I wasn't convinced the problem could be the one above.

Have you tried memtest with the four sticks at the same time?

No, I used the diagnose tool of Windows Vista.

I did it like this:

1. sticks A and B in the red banks - result: okay

2. sticks C and D in the red banks - result: okay

3. sticks A and B in the yellow banks - result: okay

4. sticks C and D in the yellow banks - result: okay

 

Tell me, have you overclocked the CPU?

Yes, from 2,88 to 3,12 GHz (more or less; don't know the exact numbers)

 

Have you done any drives update lately?

What do you mean?

 

Also check the hardisks. You must have sata cables. Take them out and mount them again. The ideal situation would be to replace SATA cables.

This is a long shot, but my technical instinct, and it's not always correct, tells me it could be a controller/cable/Hardisk problem.

All cables are brandnew, because my first step was to replace the power supply unit last week.

I now have installed a Cooler Master 600 W.

I also ran disk doctor and made a check on both hard disks.

Edited October 24, 2010 by Olham

[Von Paulus 8]

I wrote drives but I meant drivers.

As for the cables, I wasn't meaning the power cables that come from PSU but the data cables that connect motherboard to hardisk. You've replace them also?

There's a little test you can do... try to remove the last memory stick, and see if the system freezes again.

 

The next thing is something related with something that you won't to hear, probably.... You'll have to configure you motherboard to operate at stock speeds. So remove the overclock, and see if it's stable. You shouldn't have a problem with it , because it's only a minor overclock.... but the truth is that if you want to diagnose the crash you'll have to operate at stock speeds. Sorry that's rule number one.

Unless you just want to buy a new CPU, motherboard and a new memory.