Need Urgent Help. Please Read.Desperate.

[Guest]

Dear all, I am writing and sending this letter to various entities and forums because at this stage I am in a very desperate state. Don

[Guest United]

Sir: Your expectations for frame rates are too high. I also have a 3.06 Pentium 4 chip. I happen to have 1 ghz of ram, but your RAM is quite adequate. The fact of the matter is that all sliders maxed, you will never acheive 30-35 FPS in many areas of FS2002 and especially if you are using 3rd Party Addons, especially Wilco Airport/Aircraft products, but this goes for many other add-ons as well. You might acheive FPS of 15-22 or so, but that is tops. If you move the sliders down to 50-75% levels you might get as high as 40 FPS, but not in large airport areas. Had you been following the AVSIM forums for the past 2 years, you'd see that this subject has been thoroughly gone over again and again and again and in the end the issue of frame rates is controversial at best and if I recall, someone suggested that a CPU rated at somewhere of 5 or 6 GHZ might actually provide a consistent 30 FPS with everything maxed in FS2002. If I'm not mistaken, 5 -6 GHZ is probably 3-5 years away and FS2008 or FS2010. My advise is to move your sliders down and enjoy FS2002 as well as you can. Your hardware is just fine in my opinionRandy Jura, KPDX

[John_Cillis 2,406]

I echo Randy's response. I've been a system tech for 14 some odd years. I can apply my experience to keep a system stable, but I can't apply it towards making a system run faster than it was meant to run. Sadly, the hyper-threading your cpu supports isn't supported by FS2002, although rumor has it that FS2004 will support it.As for your lockups, it'd be hard to venture a guess. I do believe 8 fans may be pushing your power supply a bit.... Strategic fan placement, vs. quantity, can go a long way towards keeping a system cool. Before I set up any system I build, I close it up, and blow a table fan from various angles, to see which produces the best outflow from the box. I then position my internal fan, and sometimes two, accordingly. In the hot desert of Phoenix, in a study I keep at 30C, I can keep my cpu at 40C with one exhaust fan and the stock fans included with the power supply, cpu and graphics card.Weak memory can be a source of random lockups, such as the screensaver related lockup you describe. But I would ditch the screensaver altogether, and go with strictly the XP default 2-d screensavers. If you still have issues, try swapping the chips--sometimes one chip can be marginal while the other is a bit better. The other issue, and I can't say it enough, is to strip your system of all applets, but the bare minimum. I don't even allow my default vid-card tweakers to populate my system tray. The volume control is all you see there. I just run one USB device (a minidisc player), and still use a serial joystick.None of these things will gain you performance.... The best improvement I can suggest there, is to scale back AI. I believe that is the most taxing of all FS2002's features. If you are hooked on AI, as many people are, at least try to replace your AI aircraft with some of the more framerate friendly versions out there...Wish I could accept your offer of paid advice, but I doubt I'd have anything worth that much to offer.... Having supported as many systems as I have, one thing I've learned is every new system I see is a new experience, and full of enough variables that a person with your skills would be just as competent as I would be in troubleshooting it.....Regards,John

[gosta 0]

To Randy:Overly high fps expectations are one thing, but system hang-ups are an indication that something is actually wrong here.To Alex:My suspicion would be that this is a software issue, rather than a hardware problem - XP Service Packs, graphics card drivers, beta BIOSes, new DirectX versions and what have you don't always go together, so it would be helpful if you could pinpoint the problem to a time when a particular software was installed.However, if you suspect it's the RAM, I would check if the system boots with just one chip at a time. If it works fine with one but not the other, than you'll have a likely culprit and can probably save yourself going through all your software with a fine toothcomb.Cheers,Gosta.http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky/images/wxrebeta.jpg

[Guest]

Hi AlexFirstly I have to say I am very jealous of your situation there in Malta. I think if I had a well paid job out there in the Med I wouldn't be too worried about my pc. But I suppose being almost unemployed in London gives me different perspective. So my first advice would be to have a glass of wine, sit in the sun and look at the waves;)On to hopefully more useful advice. I have been tinkering with pcs for a few years now but as an amd man I can't offer catagorical advice on your p4 but I have had a quick look at a few websites and have noticed a couple of possibilities.www.scan.co.uk reccomend special memory for your mb, so it may be that it is very finicky about the quality of memory used. You can probably find out more on this from a teckie website. the forum at www.overclockers.co.uk is pretty good for hardware problems. Another possibility is mb chipset drivers. It sounds like your mb is very recent and hence the drivers in xp might not be up to the new chipset. Have you installed the latest chipset drivers? If not, I suggest you do so. You should be able to find them on the intel site or possibly the asus site. btw I do not mean update the bios. You mention flashing the bios with a beta. I would caution against this unless the release notes speciffically mention the problem you are having. Flashing the bios is not without risk and is probably unnecessary.Another likely culprit is the agp card. Again I don't have direct experience of the radeon 9700pro (still stuck with my old gf3 200) but high agp speeds have been the cause of instability in the past and offer little advantage. Intel chipsets, like yours, have always been much better than via at handling agp, however, 8x is still new technology. If the above suggestions don't work try reducing your agp speed in the bios to 2x and see if that helps.Otherwise your components look well chosen and I think it is just a matter of getting the right memory or latest drivers and setup tweaks.Hope this is helpful.bailoutps I do home support visits and will get it working myself if you like. My rates are very reasonable, a return ticket to Malta from london (economy is fine) and enough floor space for my sleeping bag should cover the bill;)

[Guest rogue1]

Bailout is right. You've got the wrong memory. According to your motherboards manual you can use PC2100 or PC1600 DDR chips, but not PC2600 DDR chips. You'll need to get the right memory chips for your machine.I would recommend these guys for memory:http://www.mushkin.com/cgi-bin/mushkin.storefrontSee this for their recommended DIMMs for this motherboard:http://www.mushkin.com/cgi-bin/Mushkin.sto...90880#asusp4g8xYou also cannot use double-sided x16 DDR DIMMS. You need to install memory in pairs, one in DIMMA1 one in DIMMB1 or one in DIMMA2 one in DIMMB2. Or chips in all four. If you go with a single memory chip put it in DIMMB1. See page 2.12 of your manual.Also make sure you set the Memory Frequency properly (also on 2.12), see below:CPU FSB DDR DIMM Type Memory Frequency533 MHz PC2100 266 MHz400 MHz PC1600 200 MHzIt could also be this (copied from Mushkin):Important: Using an AGP 8X capable graphics card (which you have), "Video Caching Mode" in the BIOS needs to be set to USWC, in UC mode the board will lose stability, default to 640 x 480pixel resolution in 16 color mode and generate messages pointing to either the graphics drivers or to the memory while in reality it is a BIOS setting issue. Note that the board ships with UC as the default setting. As you can see this motherboard is very picky about it's components.Hope this helps. You are welcome to e-mail at kd7mdr@arrl.net for help if none of these solve your problem.Jim

[Guest Airtours]

You made a big mistake going for the Intel Pentium IV 3.06GHz CPU (with Hyper-Threading Enabled), I have the AMD athlon 2.6+ XP and that is alot better and faster than yours.My spec is: - AMD Athlon XP 2.6+ - 256mb Ram - Windows XP Home - Nvidia Geforce 4 MMX 440 with AGP8X 128mb - 120 HDD - 19inch moniter (flat front screen) - 5.1 digital surround soundand i get 50-60 fps with sliders fully maxed out!!and i runs like a dream.

[Guest SoarPics]

[Guest GalacticCowboy]

Something else to think about also... If you're going to be replacing the RAM anyway, you might check the mobo manual and see if it says what slots to use for DDR. I know on my system it says to fill slots 3 and 2 in that order, and fill slot 1 last. Since you're using 1 and 3, this could be the source of some of your problems. But like I said, your motherboard manual should say for sure.

[Guest]

What i would do is reformat the hard drive and re-install windows.Then make sure you have your bios settings correct. Go to a comp forum, (www.overclockers.com is OUTSTANDING), and tell them your set up and bios version. They will tell you how to set it up exactly.Disable HT. (may cause instability in unsupported software)Then install the latest drivers for your hardware, but DON'T install dx9, just stick with the dx8.1 that comes with xp.Only install your essential software, and then try fs2002 again.Make sure to report back.

[Guest]

oh yeah, acouple of more questions:1) what is the exact make and model of your power supply?2)when you say max settings, i assume you mean full detail settings, 100% atc and 4xs AA and 16x aniso.if so, 25-30 fps, with 3rd party addons, is pretty damn good.FS2002 is a hungry game, my 2.4ghz 512 ram pc slows to 5fps with max settings, so don't feel dissapointed about the peformance side.

[Guest]

Hello All and thanks alot for your help, First of all, I wish to point out that in my letter I made a terrible mess, when I made a typographical mistake, and stated that the installed Ram I got is PC2600, when actually it is PC2100!! I apologize to all of you who tried to really help me and got confused with this, please accept my sincere apologies. So, let me start by answering some points you pointed out. I am running Windows XP Pro Corporate Edition. It is updated to Service Pack 1a ONLY (no critical, recommeded, etc updates installed). [Need some feedback if I should settle on Win 2000 Pro]. ALL drivers and inf files are installed/updated to their latest version from their manufacturer to date. The bios is still the version that the mobo came out with (v1003). ATi is running catalyst 3.2, and so on, everything to the latest. In another forum elsewhere (sysopt) someone mentioned to me, that converting the HD from IDE to Sata could have degraded to performance. My HD is a maxtor 160Gb, delivering 133Mps, and the IDE on the mobo accepts a max of 100Mbs, and thats why I converted it to Sata, to gain back those lost 33Mbs on ide. If someone can enlighten me on this please. Should I go straight and buy a Sata HD?? Ouch!! Anyway, something that I am going to buy for sure is the ram, the one of you here pointed out. That my mobo needs "it's own kind of ram", sort of. I will upgrade it to 4Gb, so all slots will be filled, and no chances are taken. Will go for the best brand. But the story doesn't end here. It is merely started. I looked thoroughly in your posts here and found some that really took my plea seriously. Some has also taken the liberty and searched sites for information to help me. I will be in touch with you all, and see who is the best "candidate" for this. I will pay $300 USD for the whole operation. $100 USD each payment. Will be in contact through e-mail or phone, and any expenses will be paid by me as well. I am crazy about this machine, and I want it to run perfectly. So, if anyone of you here, who replied to my post, have his e-mail hidden, please send me your details to be able to stay in touch. Anyway, if you are not interested in this experiment and earn an extra buck, then don't bother obviously. But I will make it worth your time for sure. Someone mentioned Mushkin as the source of the Ram, will check them out and make sure that they will be shipped before we start on this experiment. If someone else have a better idea, please come forward before I buy this type of ram. Great Thanks in advance, and right now, I am hoping that I haven't left anything out. Hope I wrote everything I had to say. Thanks again to all of you.Kind Regards,AlexP.S.: Tonite my sister is going to get married, and I am going to be out for today and tomorrow, so please, don't be offended if someone writes to me and will not get a reply before Monday. Thanks.

[Guest]

Hello Again, While I was writing my previous post, Scorched Soul posted 2 messages that I won't dare to miss out on, so here are my answers:-Regarding re-formating, I have done this about 20 to 24 times in the last one (since the system was set up- Microsoft's activation support began to suspect that I am using the same license to install Win XP on different machines. I had to make it clear to them that this problem was driving me nuts, and had to re-format each damn time), and tried to point out which was the issue that was causing this problem!!- DirectX 9 was ALWAYS installed INSTANTLY after the installation of Windows was ready. So, this may be one of the problems??- The power supply I am usig is CTW, delivering 450W, and I was told that it is good enough.- And oh, thanks to Scorched Soul, I remembered that I left some points out from the previous guys; regarding the temp.-Iintially, I installed 10 fans, and the CPU was on a stable 29 degree celcius on idle, and reached a max of 43 celcius when running FS2002. I found out that a couple of these fans when taking off air from the ATi gfx card, and took them both off, and the system became more stable (in favour to ATi), and now the CPU is reporting to be 39 degree celcius on idle, and 53 celcius max when running FS2002/Comanche 4.So there you go, I think I made it all up now. Thanks again people. I really appreciate all this, and i am proud to make part of this kind community. My family have been telling me that it would be better and cheaper for me to throw all my PC stuff away and buy the real thing, ehehe, maybe, just maybe. But for now I have to stick with flying on the PC.Kind Regards to all,Alex

[Guest]

your cpu temps are fine.Howver the hang ups may be one of these:1)your psu in not adequate2) your 9700 is overheating3) ht casuing instability4) dx 9I understand you stress, as i had a similar situation and in the end you get so fed up and just want the damn thing to work!!!I would say disable ht and see what happensif the error stays, underclock your radeon.if this doesn't work, try installing windows with dx8.1if this doesn't work, i would suggest buying an antec 500w+ psu.You are not overclocking, so i doubt your ram is the problem. Unbranded ram becomes a liability when oc'ing, otherwise 99% of the time it is fine.oh yeah, you DON'T need 4gb ram. 1gb is more than enough. Fill the first two slots, don't miss one out.

[Guest]

Hi again AlexDon't order that new memory yet. It appears that there is a known problem with your mb chipset (Intel E7205) and the radeon 9700pro. They are both supposed to use the new AGP 3.0 standard but the fault in the mb chipset causes lock-ups with this combination. It appears that you are probably suffering the problems associated with being an early adopter of new technology before the bugs have been ironed out.Unfortunately my earlier suggestion of simply reducing the agp speed in the bios is not enough to solve the problem as the card will still be communicating via agp 3.0 and hence you will still have the problem. There are some bios fixes that help some people but not all and you can tape over certain connectors on the card to force it to use agp 2.0 but this sounds a bit messy to me and the chipset problem will still be there for any future agp3.0 cards that you may wish to upgrade to.I found out about the bug from this thread on the overclockers.co.uk mb forum,http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthrea...?threadid=63015There are more suggestions and info on this thread,http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=175332and the intel pdf giving details of the fault is hereftp://download.intel.com/design/chipsets/...dt/25193802.pdfIt certainly sounds like it could explain the problems you are having and unfortunately it seems unlikely that it will be fixed. Apparantly the chipset is soon to be superceded by new versions that won't have the prblem.Some people on the threads are talking about trying to get a replacement board from asus. Perhaps as you ordered both the mb and the rad card from the same supplier you could try getting them to swap your board for a cheap alternative and then buy one of the new mb that will come out soon with the next generation of intel chipset which should hopefully have this problem ironed out. I would suggest getting a new mb rather than swapping the radeon for an agp2.0 card as otherwise you will be stuck with an old graphics card because new cards will use the agp 3.0 standard.Have a look at the threads I have linked to and see what you think. Let me know if you have any questions.good luckmartinps check with your mb manual that your memory is the right spec and you have it installed in the correct slots and if so I would assume it works as the mb bug seems to explain your lock-ups. Otherwise you could waste a lot of money buying more memory.