Quote from Dmt :

I got this problem for ages , you have to agree with it

What is your spec? Do you have an AMD too, and if so what type is it?

OK, thanks. That's interesting to know because you're the first Intel user who I've found who has it.

Have you tried to fix it much? There is a list of things I've tried at the top of thsi thread:

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=26541

most of which are things that I've found that other people have tried with some success.

Strange about the heli view. Maybe that uses more GFX power, in which cause it's probably worth checking for GFX CPU overheating.

Well kx_mole and I have different amounts, makes and speeds for a start.

But I do take your point, it could be anything, and without the full spec of every machine it has happened on it will be hard to be confident of the cause. But from the info we do have, it's the prime suspect.

As Mike2002 says, I think that this problem has only ever been reported with AMD processors. If anyone has had this with an Intel processor I'd be very interested to hear.

I've tried on two seperate HDs, different brands, and disconnected the other one while I tested it, so I'm pretty sure it's not the HD.

I've also tried two NVidia GFX cards, one an FX(5) series, the other a 6 series. The problem has been reported with ATI cards too though so so I don't think it's caused by the GFX card either.

The AMD has to be the prime suspect.

OK, I've just been back through all the threads I could find regarding this problem and all of the users that have specified their processor type have AMDs. Shinrar had the problem with an Intel but he managed to solve it so that may have had a different cause.

So I think I will raise this as a bug and see if the devs can look into it, maybe they will already have some idea of what the problem might be. If they can't fix it I guess I'll be buying a new mobo and an Intel CPU.

Hi Greboth.

Do you still have this problem? Do you have an AMD processor by any chance?

OK, so here's mine:

http://members.aol.com/nickaaronson/Report.htm

I don't know anything about memory timings. I tried to change my AGP to 4X in the BIOS a while ago but the option was greyed out.

I'll compare the two and edit the post if I notice anything interesting. Only thing I noticed at first glance was that we have the same Seagate hard drive, but I have tried a new XP and LFS installation on a different one, so it isn't that.

@kx_mole: Thanks. That's quite useful to know your soundcard. In which case I doubt it is my integrated sound that's the problem but I may continue testing it. Problem is it's really hard to drive properly without being able to hear the tyres squeel, so I don't gain anything from the testing!

@Albieg: That's fantastic! I will do the same tonight if I get a chance and post it here.

If anyone else with this problem could do the same that would be great. You can download Aida from the link in the post below.

At a quick glancer it looks like the thing we all have in common is AMD processors. Even then we have different speeds.

Last edited by Nick A, Wed 18 Jul 2007, 12:59. Reason : bad link! being a bit thick and forgetting which users have the problem :)

OK. So you have had the same freezes in games other than LFS?

I suggest you go down the list of things I tried at the start of this thread. I picked most of them up from other threads on this forum and some people had reported thay they fixed the problem. Most of them don't take long to do.

Then if you still have the problem we need to work out what our systems have in common, there must be something!

@kx_mole

I have a VIA IDE controller, and am using the Microsoft driver. Actually my previous GFX card was a Ti4200 - it was a pretty good card, but I can't remember if I had these freezes with it. Probably not but then that was with an earlier version of LFS before these freezes became more common.

Remember I have tried two different NVidia GFX cards, and they needed different drivers so I don't think the problem is caused by the GFX card.

Also, on further thinking from my earlier post I don't think it's my wheel because I've used it on a laptop with no problems.

kx_mole and micha1980de what sound card or integrated sound do you have? I was wondering whether the sound could be the problem because I think LFS uses synthetic sounds (mainly) where most games use only samples. Is that true? It might explain why only LFS seems to suffer from this problem.

It's interesting that we have quite different systems but the same problem.

I am still testing with/without sound at the moment, but the freezes have stopped happening so frequently, so it's really hard to tell if it makes nay difference.

My other suspicion is still the PSU or electicity supply, but I'm not sure why a problem like that that would affect LFS but nothing else.

Thanks. I changed the power connection to HD 2 and re-ran the tests (see below). Not sure if it was that or something else but the output for HD2 looks much more normal now. Comparing with the results charts, the max. transfer rate and response time look right. I do always get those blips at the start but I did notice a couple of charts on the HDTune site with them too, so not too worried about that.

I checked and I do have an 80 pin cable which goes to the 2 HDs and a 40 pin cable going to the CDROM. I didn’t know that about the master/slave positions on the cable – I will check it tonight.

Now a general update:
I read on this forum somewhere that someone had problems because too many devices were connected to the same power line on the PSU (there are 2). I checked and had my 2 HDs and my GFX card on one, and only the CD and floppy drive on the other. So I rearranged that so the GFX card is on the second line, and removed the CD-ROM. Didn’t work though, I had a couple of freezes last night.

One thing I noticed is that since I’ve been trying to fix it the freezes have been less frequent so something I’ve done has affected it. But last night I returned some settings (hardware and software) to how they were and had 2 within half an hour, which actually is good because it’ll enable me to test things more quickly.

Anyway I did learn a couple of things from last night’s freezes. Firstly I looked at Process Explorer immediately after the freezes, and definitely there was no sign of any activity at the time of the freeze in any of the programs running (including LFS) so that tells me that it’s not another program hogging resources and is more likely to be hardware related. Secondly, on the second freeze I moved the wheel while the freeze occurred and saved the replay which shows that the wheel input was not registered. In the replay my car just looks like I’m not steering, you can’t see the freeze. The replay is attached. The freeze occurs at the end of lap 3, on the start/finish straight. I’m sure in previous replays of freezes I’ve sometimes seen my car disappear though, but that could have been an online replay –I’ll check tonight. Edit: Again, there was nothing reported in event viewer at the time of the freeze either.

One more thing:

I have some LEDs on the front of my machine (look like a fake cathode tube!) and they flicker slightly. I think they did this even with my old PSU, but it made me wonder whether the PSU output is not stable, but perhaps at a higher frequency than my voltmeter can detect?

So my current thoughts are:
Problem caused by my wheel
Problem caused by inconsistent PSU output
Problem caused by on-board sound (some people have reported freezing problems when both onboard and external sound are enabled. I only have onboard sound but I wondered if this could be the problem).

Last edited by Nick A, Fri 13 Jul 2007, 08:08.

Quote from micha1980de :

@nick

i was wondering what kind of hd you where using, because i always get a curve like this: (fast test of a Ide).
is it a S-Ata drive, or does your hd-infrastructure limit your bandwith to your drives, or are they just plain fast?
Because even the tests of the c't (well known magazine here in germany) get's results similar to mine...

regards

I changed those snapshots to .png's for easier viewing. You can see that my 1st HD is like yours.

HD1 is a Seagate ST380011A 80GB IDE
HD2 is a Hitachi HDS728080PLAT20 IDE

So not sure why my second HD's speed doesn't drop off.

I did a surface scan on it yesterday and it does have an error on it, but I don't think this is related to the freezing because I've had the freeze even with that HD unplugged.

EDIT: Actually, I just noticed something must be limiting the data transfer from HD2 because even at the end of the test on HD1, the transfer rate is higher than the rate on HD2.

Here's a quick update:

I thought for a while that the Netgear Wireless USB dongle might be the cause of the problem as I read on the Netgear forum that many people had freezing and 100% CPU usage problems and that it tends to overheat. I unplugged it and it was Ok for a few hours of LFSing but then it froze again

Also used HDTune (great program - thanks for the tip) to do a full surface scan (no errors reported) and 3 benchmarks, screenshorts attached. The first one does have a bit of a drop - what do you think?

I also checked out Event Viewer (also very useful) but no errors were reported for last night, when I had 2/3 freezes.

So I'm no further forward really so again I'm owndering about buying a new motherboard and PSU if I don't make some progress soon. Keep the suggestions coming!

Edit: Results for hard drive 2 below, results for hard drive 1 at the bottom.

Last edited by Nick A, Wed 11 Jul 2007, 16:56.

It was a fantastic race last weekend for those who missed it. Some really close racing and very few incidents. A video is being put together at the moment which I'm sure will be posted here as soon as it's done.

Entries for the next race are already full! Still some reserve places left though.

I was just thinking today how useful a feature like this would be as I have an hour long replay to look at tonigh. Will give it a go - thanks!

Quote from Albieg :

Strange problem indeed... All I can say is that I hope you solved it. You already did a thorough diagnostic job.
I am curious about it, however... You said you tested 2 different hard disks, but you didn't say if you tested 2 different installs of Windows XP on separate HDs, and if both HDs were connected at the same time to the system or not. It could be related to some momentarily unavailable resource being polled by the OS during the freeze, and it doesn't necessarily have to be related to LFS, so two different installs of LFS on separate hard disks wouldn't exclude hard disk problems. The sound your hard disk is making is interesting, it shouldn't happen while the PC is working. Is there any clue related to HD problems in the Event Viewer, or is it clean? Any non-cosmetic errors? Did you test both your hard disks? You could try HDTune, checking the performance first: it should be steady enough, with no significant long dips, then you could check SMART parameters and do a full surface scan, all of this after being sure the file systems are clean.

Yes, it's a seperate installation of XP. As for whether the second HD was plugged in at the time or not, I can't remember unfortunately, but they were probably both connected. Last night I ran LFS for about 3 hours and had no freezes but the second HD was unplugged, could just be a coincidence but I'll keep an eye on it.

What's the event viewer? ProcessMonitor? That seemed to give so much output I didn't knwo where to start!

I'll add HDTune and the surface scan to my (growing) list of things to try - thanks .

I tried triggering the dodgy power connector I found yesterday while running LFS last night to try and replicate the problem. Got the HD noise plenty of times, but it never caused LFS to freeze so not so confident that's the problem now. I havn't switched the cables yet because I wanted to be able to replicate the problem before making any changes to try and solve it.

If the power connection doesn't solve it I'll definately give that a go. I just did a search on the net and found quite a lot of references to this problem due to the WLAN USB, but most were for the WG111 rather than the WG111T. It seems they draw a lot of power and get very hot, so fits in with my thoughts along the lines of power problems. Thanks!

Quote from The Moose :

I briefly had newer nvidia drivers and noticed that some features had moved and you had to use ntune to access them ( i have a feeling that Temp monitor was one of them)
I went back to the NGOmodded97.92's though. The best drivers for my 6800GS by far.

Do you use a good driver cleaner before installing new drivers? You certainly should to avoid conflicts.

Hard disk speed really shouldn't matter....after my newer hard drive died i've been forced to use my old 5200 speed drives, but i have no problem with LFS( or STALKER, which seems to induce a lot of disk activity but no stuttering or freezing occurs)
Though the strange noise your hearing with your HD is certainly worrying....i would back up any important stuff from that drive NOW. I lost 80gigs of music because i left it too long. A mistake ill never make again

You say you've run memory tests, but i still have a funny feeling there might be a problem in that direction. Can you borrow a stick of memory from someone to try instead of yours?

Probably no help but i thought I'd throw out a few random ideas

ThanksWhat you say about the temp monitor being put into ntune tallys up with something I read the other day.

I have all my music and docs backed up onto an external HD so no worries there.

I have never done a driver clean actually. What program do you use? Sounds like it's worth doing anyway.

I tried to identify which HD was making the squeek. Turns out they both do it when the power goes off so perhaps it is a normal noise in that situation. Then a promising discovery this morning: there is a bad connection on the power lead to the HD. if I poke it, the HD makes the squeeking noise it makes when it shuts down. I have also heard this noise in the past intermittantly from the PC (without moving anything). Tonight I will move the connectors round and try again. I didn't have any problems last night anyway though so it may be a while before I know whether it has solved the problem.

Quote from dungbeetle :

Hmm ... that's strange, 'cos I have the latest drivers installed here.

ForceWare has two types of user interface. Have you checked in the 'Advanced' user interface as opposed to the basic one?

I will have another look tonight, but as I've tried two graphics cards I doubt that overheating is the problem anyway.

I had a strange one last night, the cocpit turned black, then a strip of track around an opponents cars turned darker. But no freezing.

I am becoming suspicious that it might be a power problem. I aslo got a momentary graphical glitch last night and at the same time my infra-red headphones picked up some momentary interference. Also, I noticed my hard drive sometimes (maybe every 10 mins or so) makes a noise (it's like a little screach), the same noise it makes just before it turns off. The 5v and 12v voltage still look steady enough though.

I'm running out of ideas again so I'm starting to think about replacing some components, it's taking up too much time diagnosing it. I may try buying a cheap new motherboard and PSU.

Quote from mike20002 :

Do you have more than one soundcard?
Didnt find anyone in your list, but youll have one internal on your motherboard.
My PC has one internal and one external, I shutted down the internal one in bios and havent had any freezes since then... 2-3h driving.

No, I just have the onboard one. I read somewhere else that this problem can be cause by a conflict between onboard and external soundcards. It seems there are a lot of things which can cause this problem though!

Quote from dungbeetle :

No problem.
3D Settings > Performance > Monitor temperature levels.

I just found out that NVIDIA have taken out the GPU temperature monitoring feature on the latest ForceWare drivers - useful!

I measured my PSU voltages last night: 12.15V on the 12V rail and 5.16V on the 5V, which is well within spec. I'll keep an eye on them under load to check that they're stable.

I have tried looking at freezes using Process Explorer now, and couldn’t see anything untoward happening when the freezes occurred.

I'm also going to try using MS Process Monitor to monitor disk activity.

Quote from Richthofun72 :

hi !

if you are on AGP card, try to use AGPX4 speed not AGPX8.

bye !

Thanks, havn't tried that. How do I do it?

Quote from Venus :

I have the same problem. I have absolutely identified the culprit. Its my hard disk. Its too slow. Its an older one, so I'm going to update it. On my old one which was much better, I never had this problem. With this one, I do. I tried everything to eliminate the stutter, but nothing worked. I finally noticed it happens even in windows, or in any program. Its the hard disk. Update it to a faster one.

Ven

Thanks. It is less of a stuttering though, more of a temporary freeze. Also, I have tried it on 2 different hard drives. Both 80GB, but I will check their write speeds tonight.

Quote from dungbeetle :

Wow Nick, that's some list!

OK. How 'bout rolling back your Nvidia drivers to a previous version?

i.e. Did the start of the problem coincide with a driver update?


EDIT: Also, how's your power supply? a) Is it healthy and b) Is it sufficient? (graphics cards can play up sometimes if they're starved of sufficient power and driven hard).

b.t.w - What temp is the graphics card runing at (I know you've taken off the casing, but my Nvidia card only got better when I cleaned out all the dust from under the fan cover and around the cooling fins )

Thanks! I don't think it's the NVIDIA driver, becasue I've tried 2 different graphics cards, and thry used different drivers.

This problem has been around for ages - I can't remember when it started. I've just lived with it until now. A lot of people reported problems like this starting at Patch S though.

The power supply suggestion is an interesting one. I bought a new one a year or two ago after suspected problems with my old one. It's a 400W one, and I did check out the max currents at various voltages (I believe you need a lot of 5V current for devices) before I bought it. It was cheap though (£18). Is there a good way to test it? Maybe I will try plugging everything in and see if the problem becomes more frequent.

My GFX card doesn't display temperature, but I have cleaned it out, and remember I have had similar problems with a totally different card.

Thanks for your suggestions!

Shinrar's problem was eventually solved as i found on another thread. I think he said it was the Haze Effect in LFS which was causing it. No such luck with mine and as my symptoms are slightly different and I really need to get it solved, i've started a new thread with much more info:

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=26541

Last edited by Nick A, Fri 22 Jun 2007, 08:47.