SurClaro Flight Simulator Resources

they don't always work as good as you think.

A relatively well-known flight sim publication, which will remain nameless for now, recently ran an article that provided methods to improve your overall system performance through a tweak here and a tweak there, a change to this setting, and...you get the picture.

Well, one of the mentioned methods had catastrophic results on my PC. The result, complete failure of my OS and loss of all data, programs, personal pictures, yet to be turned in school work, and nearly a years worth of add-ons for FS2004.

I'm running WINXP, and the procedure was: Improving Memory Usage, where you change the memory usage from programs to system cache. Apply, and restart your system.

Hmm, seemed easy enough, it's recommended by this publication, and heck, it's an available option in the Windows system utility; what could go wrong?

HAHA, well I found out as soon as my computer started back up and I watched as everything I had slowly disappeared through write failures and corrupted files and several other never before seen error messages. I did everything I could to prevent further damage and possibly restore my system, with no such luck. Last resort, get some of my old instructors on the phone, they'd know what to do. No luck there either, the only fix, complete reinstall of the OS.

Be careful of what tweaks you attempt. I'd really like to kick myself in the a$$ right now. I'm a big believer in the saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." My system was running just fine, didn't even need any freakin' tweakin'!

Posted: Wed Aug 25, 2004 4:17 am Post subject:

I feel for you Rick. We have all been there at some point where we try to make things faster/smoother/easier...but it takes us back a few steps in the process.

I take it you had no backup? Even an image of your system drive would have worked for a restore. Xp didn't restore it from last good config huh?

Well...there is one good thing about all of this...you passed on valuable information to the rest of us...and we thank you. Too bad it had to happen this way.

Hope you get it going again just like it was before this disaster!!!

Exx

Posted: Wed Aug 25, 2004 6:26 pm Post subject:

Rick, In the future (for school stuff) keep a copy on your home pc, a copy on a floppy (or cd-rw if the size needs it), and a copy at school, if they allow it, the reason is if you keep a copy school and forget your paper and/or disk you can tell the teacher/prof "I left my stuff at home but I have yesterdays copy here, the changes I made are..." the reason for the x-tra copy at home is if something happens to your disk you have a copy.

If this comes in handy for anyone PM me a thanks.

Posted: Wed Aug 25, 2004 6:35 pm Post subject:

And a copy on a homepage.

You can better buy a good system, then change some settings and don't change anything after that.

Posted: Wed Aug 25, 2004 8:13 pm Post subject:

i too have learned the hard way to be sure to back up my school work in several places. The most handy i have found is a usb jump drive (or whatever you want to call it) i have a 128mb one and it is compatible anywhere you go pretty much so you can read and write to it and its small enough to take with you wherever you go. So i usually save my work twice, once on the computer and once on the usb drive. for addon planes i usually back those files up on cd...

Posted: Wed Aug 25, 2004 9:34 pm Post subject:

My schools computers haveing USP ports Laughing

THATS a good one Laughing

Posted: Wed Aug 25, 2004 11:05 pm Post subject:

Rick:

I read the same article that you read and made the exact same change to my system using Windows XP Home Edition). Shortly after making the change, I kept getting error messages telling me that I had potential disk drive problems. My computer kept telling me to run SCANDISC. After several days of the garbage, I backed up my files, reformatted the hard drive and restored my files.

THIS MAKES TWO OF US THAT HAD THE EXACT SAME PROBLEM AFTER FOLLOWING THE ADVISE. I AM GOING TO REPORT THIS PROBLEM TO THE EDITOR OF THE MAGAZINE.

Posted: Wed Aug 25, 2004 11:21 pm Post subject:

Please PM me the name of the mag. So I don't do it to Customers computers

Posted: Thu Aug 26, 2004 1:02 am Post subject:

Rick was very correct in not stating the name of the magazine because he did not mean to critizize the magazine. I suspect that they were only trying to be helpful by sharing some information that was passed onto them.

Rick stated the problem very clearly in his original posting where he stated:

I'm running WINXP, and the procedure was: Improving Memory Usage, where you change the memory usage from programs to system cache. Apply, and restart your system.

Posted: Thu Aug 26, 2004 2:18 am Post subject:

That's correct Skipperdan, and from my standpoint, no one at the mag forced me to make the change, I did it myself and therefore have to deal with whatever happens. I preferred not to mention the name because it is an excellant publication and I didn't see any reason to put it in a bad light because of a choice I made.

It is generally common knowledge (or should be) to make a backup, or have one already, of anything you want to change, especially in regards to making system changes. This was one of those times I didn't and to tell you the truth it hasn't been all bad.

I've been wanting to clean-up my system for a long time just didn't have the patience to tackle the task. Well, it's been tackled and now complete.

Posted: Thu Aug 26, 2004 2:31 am Post subject: Hint for the next victim

I'm currently running my own system using System Cache priority and although I see no marked performance increase, there are no problems either. Would I be correct in assuming that you performed not only the Cache adjustment, but also disabled Last Access Time Stamping? That's the one that hurts. The command-line menu is your first clue that this setting was not designed for easy user access. any case, sounds like you've already resolved your problem. Aside from all the admonishments already posted to keep backups (and make a fresh one before performing brain surgery on your operating system) the fix in this case was to invoke the Boot Selection Menu during bootup (F5) and selecting 'Boot from last known good configuration'. Critical files weren't destroyed, they were mismatched-- because normal updates were no longer being written. This results in a warning dialogue for every discrepency, making bootup an hour-long process of choosing "OK" for each warning. Bootup probably will not complete, making it impossible to "simply reissue the command" (says the article) to turn it off. Previous functioning configuration had Writes turned on however, so problem solved- after running CHKDSK to clear all the orphaned files this 'improvement' created. I wonder who it was who contributed this gem to the nameless (but trusting) magazine, which I believe cannot possibly work? Terrorists attack again, crashing virtual aircraft! Evil or Very Mad

And proof that you can't trust something just because it's in print.

Posted: Thu Aug 26, 2004 3:28 am Post subject:

mstreibig...thanks for the info.

I thought last access time stamping was always enabled by default in WINXP so I was surprised when that possible part to a solution didn't work. I was also as surprised to find out that none of the WINXP F-key options worked ( F2, F5, or F8 ). I'm assuming that because of the state of my system disk, it wasn't able to access the advanced boot options and I only got lucky that I hadn't changed the boot device order prior to this and was still able to boot from the CD-ROM (with the restore disk) before the system disk attempted to boot and I was again faced with the million error message dialogues.

It was certainly a lesson learned.

NOTE: SKIPPERDAN, could you please send me a follow-up on any info from the email you send the mag? I sent off an email to them also to let them know the story yesterday.

Posted: Thu Aug 26, 2004 7:35 am Post subject:

Yes

I implemented both tweeks at the same time. I also implemented the tweek to not update the "Date of Last Update". It sounds like you may have identified the real curprit.

Sorry I may have missed the point - but for what it's worth - I start up my computer (XPpro) in "Selective Startup" after running "msconfig" in Start and uncheck "Process SYStem.ini File", the "Process Win.INI File" and the "LoadStartup items boxes". Then go to "Services" Folder and check "Hide all Microsoft Services" then hit "Disable all", hit "OK" and select reboot.
On rebooting hit "OK" select "Cancel" option and you are ready to start f9.
To return to normal startup, re-run "msconfig" and select "Normal start. apply, close and reboot. You must not foreget to activate your joystick when in this mode before starting f9.
This comes from Microsoft and is used when wanting to cut off other running progammes while running games. It works for me and I run all my slides to the Right in setup. Have max effects, good scenary and smooth flying.

Please ignor if you have already tryed this to improve preformance.

Bobdell Mr. Green

Posted: Sun Oct 17, 2004 9:58 am Post subject:

Bob:

How does this differ from running ENDITALL which is the same as closing all programs and processes.