SimRacing.org.uk

Endurance Championship - Season 3, Round 7 at Brno

Date: Sunday 6th August

Practice 1: 8:00pm (20 mins)
Practice 2: 8:20pm (10 mins)
Qual 2: 8:30pm (30 mins)
Warmup: 9:00pm (2 mins)
Race: 9:02pm (80 mins)

Cars allowed: Those classed as GT or NGT, according to each driver's registered class. A list of which cars are in which class can be found here (https://www.simracing.org.uk/index.php?ind=lm2&group=7). Seat Toledo, Lotus Elise, BMW Z3M and Porsche GT3 Cup are not permitted.
Weather: Will be decided just before the race based on real-world weather.
Pit Stops: All drivers must make a minimum of one pit stop. This must involve entering the pit lane at the speed limit, and coming to a complete standstill in the designated pit box. Tyres do not have to be changed and no fuel has to be added. You cannot take your mandatory stop at the end of the pace lap, or with less than 1 lap to go.

Server: UKGTR Endurance S3
Password: Server Password is shown in the Password Board (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?board=20.0) and is available to the relevant registered drivers.

Notes:
(1) Full-time drivers should aim to arrive during Practice 1.
(2) Reserve drivers should not connect to the server until Practice 2.
(3) It's best if all drivers can make sure they are connected before the Qualifying session as drivers on track during qualifying will not see cars that join after they are on track until they go back to the garage.
(4) See  UKGTR Season 3 Info (https://www.simracing.org.uk/index.php?ind=lm2&group=27) for general Endurance Season 3 info.
(5) Please make sure you are fully aware of the UKGTR Rules (https://www.simracing.org.uk/index.php?pid=7)
(6) The season will be run using a UKGTR carpack v1.5 (http://www.ukgtr.org/downloads/SROU_Car_Pack_1.5.zip) which will need to be installed prior to racing. Details of this pack can be found here (https://www.simracing.org.uk/smf/index.php?topic=1235.msg17247#msg17247).

Any chance of squeezing one more in for the rest of season?

I'll understand if it's too full.  ;D

I'm sure there'll be some room for you as a reserve. I've stuck you in GT; there's nothing stopping you joining as NGT but the GT field is undersubscribed.

Thanks, i was intending on GT anyway.

On a side note, I may not be entering afterall, as my new Speed7 pedals have decided to only let the accelerator pedal work.  >:(

Just tried to get online to practise on the server, but there appears to be a problem with the lobby. I can only "see" about a dozen servers on there, anyone else having problems???

Looks fine to me. I restarted the server just in case anyway.

It's not a problem with the lobby really. The problem is that the primary lobby is almost full and you are only able to get into the backup lobby. Just keep trying :)

Just a note about the starting procedure:

Normally we would put the pit limter on 2 corners before the s/f-line. That might be a bit dangerous here since you can't look over the top of the hill until the very last moment.

I think we need a slight change in the starting procedure here. The best thing to do is putting the pit limiter on a bit earlier at the middle of the uphill straight (at the first brake marker).

Brno, Sunday: 60% chance of precipitation !!!  :o

TT

 :'(

It's raining a bit atm but tonight is only cloudy and cold according to my sources. Depends if you take the weather from now or tonight?

The weather is set just before the race so fingers crossed!

It would be nice to have a wet race for a change.  :)

TT

Light thunderstorm.  :lol:

TT

Light rain.  ::)

TT

It says "Mostly Cloudy" at the moment TT

Yes.  :)

TT

 Not even in my birthday I get lucky , frame rate to low some times less than ten fps.
 This was my last race, I will be back on races in the end of septembre.
 
 Cheers guys
 
 Rui Costa

Third hardware failure in a row.  >:(
Wasn't really surprised, but mad anyway. I was following Shark easily, waiting for mistakes and events, MJ wasn't far ahead, so I had a chance again for the top.

Then 1 fps and total freeze, had to hard-reset. Sound was frozen on one tone as well, graph stopped filling monitor with data, 'cause it went into power-save mode. This must be either motherboard or graphics card. Strange is, it does it in this game only. Everything else works normaly, GTR2, rFactor, BF2, Oblivion, RomeTW, Civ4, you name it. FPS were more than 70, so it wasn't overloaded. Temp in the room is 25 C, one side comp open, so no overheating. It's not Pentium thing either, as I have AMD.

One thing is for sure: I'm out of the championship battle here.  :hang:

TT

Ahhhh, bugger... 2nd again :(

Congrats to Zac.

Spun after about 35 minutes. Recovered, then spun again. Went to the pit early and reduced the gap to the leader to 15 seconds.

1st next time? Who knows ;) :D

Wow what a race !!

Brilliant qually battle fighting it out with Pops, TT, Shark and Luis throughout the session. TT incensed me with just a few minutes left by pipping my 3rd place by about 2/100ths of a second ::)...so i dropped my rear wing a notch and went out and drove the arse of the Porsche and hit my fastest ever time of a 2:01.5 to get NGT Pole. Fantastic, was very chuffed to out-qually Shark and Luis.  8)

Race started well when i managed to get a good run down the straight and get amongst the GT boys to give me a slight breather from Luis, then down to turn 2 i had 1fps freezes :o...all i could do was take my foot off the gas and steer around what i could just make out to be the turn all the time expecting to get thumped by the pack as i took an odd line thru ::)
Then pulled out about a 5 second gap back to the chasing Luis and shark and stayed that way for about 20 mins until TT disapeared.
Gradually Shark closed in and after around 30 odd mins he was close enough for me to hear his snarling Mosler engine. He then stayed within a second or so of me for about 20 more minutes until i pitted for fuel and tyres.
When i came out the pit i drove like a qually lap as i presumed Shark would be making his stop soon and he did. I was very very pleased when i came screaming down s/finish straight to see him only just emerging from the pitlane.
Inevitably he caught me up again after several laps and then put the most pressure i have ever had to endure in sim racing for lap after lap as he tried every trick in the book to put me off my line and upset my braking zones, which he did very well :(
The pressure was unbelievable and i was dripping in sweat as Shark jinked left and right trying to find a way past. Top driving mate  8) as i'm sure my braking got very erratic towards the end as he kept disapearing into my right rear blind zone and it would have been easy for us to have contact.
Absolute total relief to withstand his final assault on the last lap and cross the line in an ecstatic 1st place NGT  :angel:

Brilliant and tough race. Unlucky to TT.

Great race, grats to winners.

Started heavy and promtly got overtaken twice!! Was in third then went into TT's ghost car, got some minor damage but car wasn't same after that. Went into pit but some how released my limter and got a stop and go. Went in for it next lap but then ran out of fuel with about 15 mins to go. Don't think any fuel went in at first pit!! I only hit enter as usual and set 1st stop for 33L but didn't get it!! Wierd, but no excuses for speeding on pitlane!!

Some great driving, best racing i've had for a while.  ;D

Another awful one for me - had to retire as couldnt get off the grass with a punture, although i tried for maybe 7 mins. Sorry if i upset anyones momentum - maybe i should stay away from the GT class untill i get more time to practice, as the standard was again nothing short of excellent.
 
Well done to everyone who finished - you did better than i did! :laugh:

I'm overjoyed at how that race went!  Managed the best I could do in quali, 1:54.6 and was still only good enough for 4th behind Rich, Maurice and Greg.

Started off with a lot of fuel, content to try and tag onto the leading 3 during the first 20 laps.  Great battle for ages at the front as we were all within 5 secs or so of each-other, managed to avoid TT's ghost and backed off of a run I gained on Rich who was unfortunate enough to clout it :( at around half-way Mclaessen had pitted early and Rich was right up with Greg when I got a 'tyers worn' message (they still felt ok to me ???).  Greg then pitted, and Rich a few laps later leaving me with 1 lap to try and pull out a lead, came into the pits and was amazed to see Rich pull in again as I pulled out of my pitbox... otherwise I'd have definately still been 2nd.

Ended up with a 13 second gap back to Mclaessen, which was stable until lap 39.  I'd noticed I was running very low on fuel and if I'd had to do a 40th lap it'd have been very very close, as it was I started lap 39 with 2:05 left on the clock, and a 14 second lead... so I slowed down to a crawl at the end of the lap until the timer ran out :D ;D finished with 4.0L fuel left that *might* have got me around another lap but I'm very glad I didn't have to find out.

Great driving by the NGT guys as usual, not the easiest circuit to keep out of the way on :) Shame the pit thing robbed us of a prolonged battle at the front :-\ the first half of the race was great!

Cheater :P ::) ;) :D

Yeah, the pitstop wasn't meant to be that early. If I wouldn't have spun 2 times I would have kept going on my 1st stint for another 15 minutes. But I spun, cooked my tyres and couldn't get them cool anymore (like the S7 does every time) :(

I got some aero damage from light contact with a barrier. That affected my laptimes as well. Cost me 1 second a lap I think.

The only thing I want is win a race with GTR. I've been close so many times, but I have never actually won. Maybe next race :)

Bah only matter of time with your pace MC. Just like Jenson WAS.

I know what happened with fuel!! I got Race Stint offset enabled, on 1. My first was 100L and I asked for 32L on second. I pitted about 45 min in and probably had about 20L left or something. But because of Race Stint offset I would have left with 32L as I asked for, but I'd calculated exact fuel to be 133L and so was that 20L or so short!! Doh, my fault!!

Think the stop and go was from maybe a double press of limiter. Will have to map DFP button to a Key and use KeyDelay to put 100ms delay on it.

Was thinking about the 'following another car' physics. It affects aero making you loose grip in turns but catch in the straights but also I think it makes brakes hotter because when I was very close to Greg, about 20 meters.. the tyres seemed to want to lock more easily than normal. Anyhow, great physics. :)

Grats to the winners and players.
Another tough one!
I was so far off the pace of the top 5 Ngt's it left hardly anyone to race.
Had a full tank of fuel at the start and decided to just stop for tyres and try and save a little time in the pits, plans were somewhat scuppered when I had problems fitting into my pit space, as there was a car in the box behind and I couldn't find the space to get in :D
Lost about 20 secs there :-[
A few spins on my second stint didn't help, then decided to just try keep the gap on the guy behind and bring it home. Which I did :)

Well done to the top GT boys, You guys seem to have mastered the difficult art of safe lapping, brilliant. (man, how many times was I lapped last night?)

ps. Well done to Mark (Alien) Johnzo 8)

I knew about the losing grip part which is caused by air taken off your car by the car in front. But brakes overheating? That's brilliant. So they have taken into account the air flow as well, not only the slipstream part :o

The only thing I hate about GTR is what caused you to have not enough fuel. If I preset the amount of fuel in the garage screen all I want is them to put in that exact amount of fuel, not fill it up to that level. That's ridiculous anyway. There is no way of knowing how much fuel is left exactly. The amount on the display is just an estimate.

I'm sorry Rich, you had problems 'cause of me. Up until now my car ghosted, wasn't solid, so I'm not sure I should race until I sort it out. Problem is I'm not sure what to do, what to change to make it better. Can't buy new hardware just to see IF it's any better.  >:(

TT

Replay (http://www.ukgtr.org/replay/Brno%20-%20Endurance%20S3%20060806.zip) and Provisional Results (https://www.simracing.org.uk/index.php?ind=lm2&event=156) available

Another interesting race!

Despite taking more than 0.6s off my PB I was still nowhere near getting amongst Shark, Luis, TT & Mark in qualifying.

Brno has never been a very strong track for me so I decided to load up with fuel and see if a quick pitstop would help.

I drove really well for the first stint, managing to stay with the leaders fairly well although steadily losing ground. Managed to pick up a couple of places when I was surprised to see Luis on the side of the track and gutted again for TT with his hardware problems.

Coming up to the pitstop, Luis was about 6s behind me and catching me but not as quickly as I thought ;) and I was really happy that my strategy worked and a quick stop left me about 10s up on Luis.

A bit of tentative driving by me when being lapped by a GT brought the lead down to 6s again when I noticed that my fuel load was looking pretty low... desparately trying to work out if I had enough fuel whilst keeping Luis at bay proved too far too much for me to deal with and I made mistake after mistake and pretty tamely allowed Luis through in the end :(

After Luis went through I was a lap ahead on the car behind so I decided to play it super-safe; for the fuel and the team points. I started desparately trying to conserve fuel and eventually finished the race in the pit lane, heading for a re-fuel as I had just 1 litre left! :D

Sorry I didn't put up much of a fight Luis. I doubt I'd have held you off for 20 minutes but it would have been fun to try  :P

Awesome work by Mr Jonzo for the win, spectacular stuff mate  :clap:

Damn. Hard luck TT.  :-\


At Brno, you'd be waiting a long time from me. I was taking it so easy during the first part of the race doing 2:04s or, 5s I think. I didn't feel any pressure from you as I felt very comfortable where I was and driving like that I was not really looking in my mirrors. If you'd have gone for a late braking manoever I was quite happy to let you through as I had the championship in mind early on in the race.  8)


As the race got later and later in I was more switched off out of championship mode and more into trying to win this as the racer instincts kicked in. Once I saw MJ was nowhere near as fast in the race as qualifying I thought I had a good chance. Without pushing too hard I slowly closed in on him up to half way and then just sat there about 1 seconds behind thinking there was a long way to go yet and no need to risk all at this stage. I wanted a clear view of the braking zones and so didn't want to get any closer.


With a full tank of fuel as usual on board I knew I could stay out for a long time, but I also knew I would have to put more fuel in than Mark in the pits so. As the tyres felt good even after 50 minutes there seemed to be a bit of cat and mouse with Mark and who would pit first. I was determined not to be out thought on this one, so I stuck it out for as long as possible and sure enough Mark eventually decided he needed to pit with about 30 or less minutes left? I then put the hammer down on old rubber and a clear track I was sure to make up some time on Mark with him not in the way. Sure enough as I came out of the pits I was almost exactly where I had left, probably losing only a second on track to Mark despite having a longer stop.

With about 20 minutes left by now, I closed Mark down, occasionally being held up by back markers who wanted to give Mark a breather.  :P No one could hold me back though, everytime Mark got a gap I easily closed it down again.

In the final stages I was driving so fast that I managed a fastest lap of 2:02.3. For me this is an awesome time in race trim especially in the Mosler which is clearly slower than the 911 especially in a straight line. I was driving so much faster than Mark I was really being held up, but how do you get past a car that is so much faster down the straights that even in the slipstream I was dropping backwards and driven by a guy that is racing his absolute heart out, but also very defensively?


It was a good battle, in which I don't think I could have driven any better or done any more to get by.

I had to drive probably the best I've ever done in terms of car control and on track positioning to try and overtake you and at times avoid contact with your, how shall we say, "wide" car  :laugh:. I'm sure it looks great on the replay (even without wheels!) well worth a watch. It was tough being quicker trying overtake a car being driven so utterly defensively.  :-\ Good win Mark.

I only need 7th position next week to wrap up another drivers championship win at Suzuka, but the NGT team championship is gone with only a 1-2 from Team Shark and no starters from NGT Legends (a miracle) able to change that outcome. However, looks like the GT team title could be Team Shark's at last though. Great drive from Zacari to take the win as well as a good placing from Maverick to earn extra team points. Well done chaps.

It was a superb battle for sure. I was drenched in sweat and had cramp in my left shin/ankle by race end.

I could tell you had more race pace by the way you was able to close up on me each time you lost some ground through lapping GT cars or back-markers. I would say that i only drove 'utter defensively' on the last minutes of the race though, and who could blame me?...there was no way on earth i was going to give up a lead that i had held throughout the whole race for 80 minutes.
Most of the time, even when you closed right up, i could tell i had greater drive out of the turns and enough pace down the straights to keep pulling out on you. It was under braking where you seemed to have the bigger advantage, especially as my rear tyres got shot towards the end from defending my line from your attacks.
It was great driving on your behalf to stay so close and keep it clean but i think i did enough to earn a hard fought win.

It was all the more rewarding to win under such intense pressure from a very quick driver  8)

I didn’t get why I wasn't able to get my best pace in Brno, where in qualifying I have a PB of 2.00.877.  ???
I was some 0.8 sec slower and saw Mark snatching pole in the just when the curtin was dropping for the qualifying finale.

In race I saw maverick between me and Mark with Shark just behind looking for a chance.

maverick was faster in straight but was having difficulties braking and cornering. Mark was gaining some advantage and I was everywhere trying to pass maverick. Then on the upward S near the end of lap 2 or 3, I put the 360 inside to try to take the right approach for the next left and be able to force maverick and overtake him. Unfortunately the tyres where still very cold and when accelerating exiting from the S I was surprised by a spin which put me 90º with the track direction.
Dropped last (I think) and had to try to minimize the damage as best I could.

I caught Don which defended very well and took some 3 or 4 laps to be able to overtake him. Nice fight in there Don.
However I was losing some 2 seconds per lap behind Don and I thought I would never be able to get close to 3rd at the very least.

Further ahead I saw I was some 6 seconds behind pops but unable to get closer as I was being lapped by some 4 or 5 GT's. Very difficult to set a good pace with GT's breathing in my neck continuously.
You GT guys could have chosen to not be going so close from each other ;D, that way I could have breathe a bit in between ;D. You must had a tremendous fight racing so close together ;)

Then I saw pops in the box and stayed for some 2 more laps, hoping I could squeeze the difference.
However when I got out from box I saw the 6 seconds turning into 10 and had to push hard to get pops in sight again.
Fortunately for me pops was sliding a bit too much and I was able to overtake him with some ease which I though wouldn't happens, specially after having such a hard time to overtake Don. The NGT Legends cars were racing pretty well at Brno.

Ended 3rd when I was clearly aiming for more but that mistake was enough to put my goal very far.

Now I have to win at Suzuka and hope Simon wont' finish in points for me to be able to get first place in championship. Very difficult to impossible to happen :(

I could not sort rears overheating. Trouble was had been practiceing for monza so left it a bit late!. cheers. gerald

Yep seems that way, I'm going to test it some more by watching temps. Yea I could hear my front tyres squealing more when I was close to Greg into T2. I think within about 100 meters it starts affecting down force.

The fuel thing was my fault, see my previous post where I explained what I did. Race stint offset is in .plr, it can be quite useful but it means you have to run first stint right until the last few litres. Default is 0 off, which adds what's left from first stint to number of litres set in garage for first stop. i.e if you enter pit with 12L and asked for 38L for first stop, then race stint offset on 0 will mean you exit with 50L. The hard part is finding consistant race pace then calculating fuel for entire race. From now on think I'll use default 0 and then I can stop when I like.

It was a fabulous end to the race Mark one I thoroughly enjoyed. I could barely prise my hands off my wheel at the end they were so rigid with the amount of effort that was going in.


Ah, but didn't you know Shark's are from another planet?  ;)


I was able to brake later and was also carrying much more corner speed in most of the corners, probably except the really fast ones where we were even. Certainly the slow stuff I was faster. Your straight line speed was just so much better than mine though that it was nigh on impossible to outbrake as i just couldn't stay with the Porker.


The replay is great stuff. Especially the last 5 minutes, shame there are no wheels on the cars. Maybe in GTR 2 eh?  ;) :angel:

Hey TT,

You get 1fps using an AMD, that is very unusual - I thought it was mostly Intel CPUs.

Well it still shouldn't crash so I would suggest doing some stress testing to find any weaknesses. First i'd try run Prime95 Torture test for 12 hours. If it pases that I would think your system is stable and it's only GTR that is at fault which isn't too much of a problem seen as GTR2 is out soon. http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm

What's your specs?

Thanks, Rich, will try this.

Specs:
XP Pro SP2
AMD Athlon 3000+ (1.81 GHz)
Radeon X800 GTO 256
1 GB RAM
Lanparty UT nF4 Ultra-D motherboard

If you wan't more data you'll have to tell me where to look  ;D

TT

Have you messed around with your graphic drivers lately TT?  I found GTR very temperamental with newer driver releases and often went back to an older driver for more stability and better fps.

No, Mark, I'm not a PC guru and let my "personal adviser" do this for me. I know him for more than 5 years, so he's more a friend than a salesman.  :)

TT

I would use the drivers from the website of the manufacturer. If they don't work too well then usually the driver that came on the CD is best.

I don't think it would cause a crash though. Run the prime95 test first to see of CPU, RAM and mobo are stable. It could be over heating GFX card, make sure fan is working and if you can control fan speed put to 100% for D3D. It could be fast writes too, there may be an option in bios to enable or disable. If it's on try turning it off, if it's off try turning it on.

Maybe now would be a good time to jump on the A64 band wagon.. going from a 1.8ghz Barton to a more than likely 2.5ghz Athlon will give a heck of a boost - 40% to 50%!! Specially in PCI-E mobo with x1900xt hehe. I know money doesn't grow on trees though. If you get A64 I recommend Opteron 146, very cheap and most overclock to 3ghz!! Not sure about mobo, I use a Asrock Dual Sata which has an AGP8x slot and a PCI-E 16x slot so you can use an AGP card then upgrade later np. I'm very pleased with mobo, rock stable and simple bios. Only thing is RAM voltage is max of 2.7v so if your RAM needs more than that the mobo will need modding. I've done a handful of very difficult mods with pots and delicate soldering. In fact destroyed two Dual Satas in the process of learning how to do it. But I know now how to do mods and don't mind helping if need be. Although if your RAM doesn't need more than 2.7v you can run an 146 at 2.6ghz without an mods straight out of the box.

Wondered off course there!! The only way to change drivers i.e uninstall previous drivers correctly is to use Driver Cleaner Pro. http://downloads.guru3d.com/downloadget.php?id=745&file=5&evp=bec91c7cea7a7deb7c2ff6880f81e469

First uninstall from add/remove then reboot into safe mode. Load DCPro, go to tools\cab cleaner and clean all four options available there one after the other. Then go back to main page, select 'multiple cleaning filters' and add ATI WDM, ATI Uninstall, ATI CCC and ATI. Start it, it's done.. reboot install new drivers. That's how I do it every time.

If there's any errors in prime well this can cause a crash or hang without doubt. This will mean trying different bios settings. Hmm you have DFI, those mobo have so many options in bios.. my guess is Prime95 will fail after few hours and it will be an option in bios somewhere that causes it.

My first place to look would be the PSU in your PC TT.  They cause a lot of problems.

Unfortunately there's not really a way to test it, just buy a good new one and hope for the best. Pretty much what PCs come down to.  ;) :P

Yep could be PSU. For A64 12v rail needs at least 30A if not more 33A would do nicely.

Great help guys, thanks!  :thumbup2:

Of course, this is too much for me, need pro help, prolly this week.  :smartass:

TT

Was doing Torture test overnight, and left it to continue while I'm at work. So far tests were all passed. I selected the test of "everything, lots of RAM testing". Is this correct, or should I run other two tests also? I'll see the rest of the results in the afternoon. Thanks again.  :)

TT

Test ran 12 h, 18 min. 0 errors, 0 warnings.  :)

TT

HI my puter has gone a bit awol,I think we may have picked a virus or some other bug up. cheers gerald

If I have ANY sort of problem related to freezing/hanging/auto shut down .......etc then the first thing I do is scan for viruses, and all the rest of the crap that hides inside.

Just something to try I guess, as most(if it finds some that is) of the time it works for me.

It's a lot quicker than ripping out hardware and torture testing so It's worth bearing in mind to do the scanning first I guess.  :)

I scan my comp every day at 3 a.m.  :)

TT

I scan the inside of my eyelids at 3am everyday. ;)

Ahh so now we know why your getting faster eh,.........all those late nights staying up untill daft o'clock practicing  ;)

Grammar boys, eh?  ;D

My anti-virus program is scheduled to scan my computer for me every day at 3 a.m. Is that better?  :P

TT

Good no errors. :)

It may only be GTR then but that's strange too. Makes me think it's driver related so I would do the driver cleaner pro thing I mentioned earlier then install latest drivers from manufacturer. With ATI i've found the official ATI drivers don't run as well as manufacturers. Failing that it could be side band addressing or fast writes. But that would only be the case if it's an AGP card as these features aren't used in PCIE?

Ultra D seems to be PCIE can't be that. Well I would try not using CCC. Download drivers only then use ATI Tray Tools to set display settings. Got to use v1.04.780 with GTR as the newer 1.05 version doesn't work as well with GTR becasue it's an older DX7 engine. I'll send you that version cause it's not so easy to find .. 

If you install it, during installation there is an option to use 'Old 12c control', put tick in this option leave everything else as is.

Ok, Rich, thanks a lot!  :)

I'm waiting - eagerly.  ;D

TT

TT, have you checked that no background application are kicking in during your GTR seshs' ?

Alway worth hitting ctrl/alt/del before firing up GTR and looking at 'task manager' / processes. Look for small progs like Iplayer )ipod) Real*.* (real-player), any spyware detector software etc and switch them off. They will re-install at next xp start up.

Well, I have them as few as possible. But even so, they are the same as at the begining of the season when everything work ok. Must be sth newer. I scanned for viruses, adware, spyware, its clean like a baby. Therefore it might be sth with the hardware.

Hope not!  :(

TT