UKGTL Season 17 European GTC Cup - Hockenheim - Jun 12

[EvilClive]

I arrived home knackered after a weekend in the North of England on our quest to visit as many UK circuits as we can with my friend from GPL, Andy Livingston.
Rolled into the house at around 7:15, dog wanted a walk and there was food to be found. As luck would have it, my wife was in the middle of watching a film so I was able to sneak away to the PC with about 5mins of qually left.

Grats to Ziu and the podium.

With zero pre race practice and not having touched these cars since the last round, I had to take a punt. I had 2 drives left in the Ferrari, so grabbed one of those and rummaged around for a setup that I had used a long time ago in No-Grip at Le Mans. Dropped the final drive by one notch, and set off to familiarise myself with the car/track combo.
It soon became obvious that this was going to be a 2 class race with the Cobras out front and the Fezzas behind. When the race started I still had not found how to get the car into the stadium complex without running wide and getting a warning!!

The race was pretty uneventful, after the gaggle of Cobras ahead slowly pulled away, until the end of the race when a recovering Jeep started to close and the last lap when Misnomis and Steve decided to trim the grass in the stadium and I was gifted 2 places within sight of the flag.

Really can't complain about the finishing position given the less than zero preparation, but it would have been nice to have had some race action to keep me awake lol.

[Erling G-P]

Matt: Is that the CPU load when running GTL ?   Doesn't look like much at all, so if that makes it overheat, what then happens if you load it 100% ?   I can bring my own CPU to 80º, but need Prime95 hammering it with 100% load on all 4 cores to do so (Core i7 930, overclocked from 2.8 to 3.25 GHz, and cooled by a Zalman CNPS9900A, an ok but not exceptional cooler). If the shown load brings yours to 80º, I would wager there's something seriously wrong with your cooling 

The fact that the GTL problem happens too on your other system suggests to me it's not heat related - would be a very remarkable coincidence if both overheat after 20 minutes.  Is there any common software on both, which could possibly kick in with a disrupting task after 20 minutes ?


About the race:  Have always hated the Cobra, but at least some tweaking of setup made it reasonably driveable, although I doubt I could ever truly tame it 

Chuffed with qual; knocked 0.5 secs off my pb, and great fun to steal 3rd on the grid from Matt with a mere 0.007 difference 

Got an ok start for once, retaining 3rd, and even getting level with Geoffers towards T1.  That presented a dilemma; didn't dare take my usual line, for fear of colliding with him, so gave him ample room. That in turn caused me to run wide on cold tyres, losing two places as Matt & Misnoimis slipped past.  Adding insult to injury, John then eased past down the long semi-straight. Recovered a place by outbraking Misnoimis into the stadium, and another one when Geoff went off.  Got past John when he put two wheels on the grass in the Ost Kurve and lost momentum.  He then became my persistent shadow for the next many laps, until a dust plume in my mirrors after T1 signaled that I could now concentrate on chasing Matt.

Gap to Matt was around 3 secs, but started dropping. With more than half the race left, it was around 1 sec.  Plenty of time to wait for an opportunity, so didn't try to rush things.  Then suddenly, as we were threading through the stadium, Matt's car braked, stopping in the middle of the track. Barely managed to swerve around him    Looked weird, and learned later that his GTL had minimized.  A consistent gap of 5-6 secs over the next many laps signalled that he had got going again.

Towards the end, it had dropped a little, and on the penultimate lap, what shouldn't happen did happen. When braking for the Ost Kurve, I got one of the dreaded 'Cobra wobbles'. Car changed direction, and with no rear grip left, I ended up on the grass, halfways spinning. With a gap of less than 5 secs, I couldn't get going again before Matt roared past.  Pressed as hard as I could, and closed the gap a little, but 1½ lap was just not enough for a comeback, so had to settle for 3rd.

Grats to Ziu & Matt, and commiserations to those who met with bad luck.

Cheers,
Erling

[phspok]

The taskmgr is just after closing GTL. The proc is an i5 750. DevMangler says 2.67gig. I am probably mixing up my two systems
but one or both report 3.2 gig max in the Hardware monitor. On one I remember it somehow overclocked itself, and when i
set it to normal it ran ok. If I don't set the affinity to all cores, GTL maxes out on core, with all cores it runs as in the chart
and the frame rate ismuch higher. I agree with 2/3 to 1/2 load it should not be hitting 80deg

The other system (at my own house) is a Core2 quad 3gig, and that one also gets very hot. That one (and maybe this one)
could do with a better cooler, but I could not find a better one that would fit, as it's quite an old machine
I fitted a case fan on a bracket blowing cool air onto the CPU fan, and that seems to cope now.

This one I refitted the cooler but it has made no difference before or after. The mounting brackets are rubbish on the
core2Quad, and the cooler fell off once, as they don't clip in very firmly. I am not certain that the Core2Quad does
exactly the same thing, it may be that it used to just  crash out of GTL with overheating. GTL must hammer things
hard, because modern multi threaded games like AssetoCorsa and Race room don't cause the overheating, though
they do run quite hot, I've never had an issue with them. It is only GTL that does this minimise to desktop thing.

[Erling G-P]

The taskmgr is just after closing GTL. The proc is an i5 750. DevMangler says 2.67gig. I am probably mixing up my two systems
but one or both report 3.2 gig max in the Hardware monitor. On one I remember it somehow overclocked itself, and when i
set it to normal it ran ok. If I don't set the affinity to all cores, GTL maxes out on core, with all cores it runs as in the chart
and the frame rate ismuch higher. I agree with 2/3 to 1/2 load it should not be hitting 80deg

The other system (at my own house) is a Core2 quad 3gig, and that one also gets very hot. That one (and maybe this one)
could do with a better cooler, but I could not find a better one that would fit, as it's quite an old machine
I fitted a case fan on a bracket blowing cool air onto the CPU fan, and that seems to cope now.

This one I refitted the cooler but it has made no difference before or after. The mounting brackets are rubbish on the
core2Quad, and the cooler fell off once, as they don't clip in very firmly. I am not certain that the Core2Quad does
exactly the same thing, it may be that it used to just  crash out of GTL with overheating. GTL must hammer things
hard, because modern multi threaded games like AssetoCorsa and Race room don't cause the overheating, though
they do run quite hot, I've never had an issue with them. It is only GTL that does this minimise to desktop thing.

Have you tried running a temperature probe while GTL is running, and Alt-Tab out of GTL to check what the temp is ?

Visited Zalman's homepage just a couple of days ago, to see if they still were in business (It's been a few years since I last built a PC).  Was surprised to see that they still make many of the designs I remember.  Most of their coolers appear to be compatible with Core 2 Quad.  Whether any of them might be better than your current solution I can't say of course, but could be worth a look: http://www.zalman.com/contents/products/list.html?c=100010

Cheers,
Erling

[phspok]

The screenshot has the temp readings, the max are what it got to running GTL
I get my stuff from scan.co.uk I bought a selection of coolers for the core2quad
and picked the one with copper base, stuck the faster fan on etc.

[Erling G-P]

The screenshot has the temp readings, the max are what it got to running GTL
I get my stuff from scan.co.uk I bought a selection of coolers for the core2quad
and picked the one with copper base, stuck the faster fan on etc.

Ah, my bad - hadn't scrolled to see the right part of the screenshot.. 

Really strange that it gets so hot.  Looks like a nifty hardware monitor - could you tell me what it is; would love to give it a test myself 

Cheers,
Erling

[SpecialKS]

Results

[Wiltshire Tony]

Results

Thank you Kurt 

[Bob M.]

Congrats to the podium and a special grats to Clive for such a good finish in the F-fer.  I had already driven the Cobra once and went with the GTO.  Race was very uneventful, Kurt and I raced close for about the first half.  I went into the weeds on about lap 4 and he went by, then a few  laps later he went off in the same place and I returned the favor. While I was behind him I tried to draft and see if it would help us together but didn't seem to help us.  Speedo and tach stayed the same and I didn't want to really pull up on his bumper and scare him so just continued on.  The GTO has the speed it just takes forever to get there, Cobras would just blow it away on acceleration.  Oh well should even out in the end I hope....

Thanks for the race
Bob M.

[phspok]

http://openhardwaremonitor.org/

There are a few, but this is the one I am using

[Erling G-P]

http://openhardwaremonitor.org/

There are a few, but this is the one I am using

Thanks; got it.  My CPU didn't get as hot as yours running a GTL replay, but need to check if actually driving in GTL is harder on it.  Dragon Age Inquisition on the other hand brought a couple of cores to 80º.  Some sensor anomaly though, as it reported my CPU fan had been spinning at 7000+ rpm - had that been the case, the PC would have left the room.. 

Have ordered a 2nd hand hexacore i7 980, and am waiting impatiently for it to arrive. Curious whether it will improve performance, and about the heat generation of course.

Cheers,
Erling

[phspok]

It gets silly figures for some sensors here as well. I have another one I use called "speedfan" and it claims different temps
for some sensors, and mostly slightly less. So, I am not entirely convinced that it really is getting to 80
but it gets "hot", and hotter than other sims, so I assume that the temp may be the issue.

[Wiltshire Tony]

I do not understand why "getting too hot" causes only the minimised screen issue. Surely it would just stop working?

If the program still runs but the graphic display is affected doesn't this suggest that the GPU is being problematic?

[phspok]

That is my dilema Tony. I have had CPUs overheat in the past, and it tends to reset the system, and reboot
I have had sims crash to desktop and die, Graphics cards overheating or dodgy connections causes funny effects
on the screen before it dies etc. This minimises GTL and can be restored imediately, I just lift and brake
and try to get off track if I know where I am, and maximise it again, it has always continued fine after that.
I have been thinking maybe the replay gets to a certain size and causes "something" to kick in, 1st time
I thought it was a windows update or similar. I have no AV software on my games machines, so it's not that.
This system has 16Gig RAM, I have done the 4 gig patch, I have tried running with and without the CPU
affinity set to all. If I could get it to run cooler I could then rule out CPU overheating, but so far it is
the only "obvious" cause. Could be GPU, I installed older drivers which gave me better frame rate at Sebring
but it's beeg doing this before that time.Started at the oval we did a while ago
GPU temps in Open Hardware Monitor look much cooler than the CPUs

[Erling G-P]

That is my dilema Tony. I have had CPUs overheat in the past, and it tends to reset the system, and reboot
I have had sims crash to desktop and die, Graphics cards overheating or dodgy connections causes funny effects
on the screen before it dies etc. This minimises GTL and can be restored imediately, I just lift and brake
and try to get off track if I know where I am, and maximise it again, it has always continued fine after that.
I have been thinking maybe the replay gets to a certain size and causes "something" to kick in, 1st time
I thought it was a windows update or similar. I have no AV software on my games machines, so it's not that.
This system has 16Gig RAM, I have done the 4 gig patch, I have tried running with and without the CPU
affinity set to all. If I could get it to run cooler I could then rule out CPU overheating, but so far it is
the only "obvious" cause. Could be GPU, I installed older drivers which gave me better frame rate at Sebring
but it's beeg doing this before that time.Started at the oval we did a while ago
GPU temps in Open Hardware Monitor look much cooler than the CPUs

I have Speedfan too; could check if it reports lower temps for me as well.  Can see you have an Asus board too.  Have you got 'PC Probe' ?  If so, you could check CPU temp there too.

Peculiar problem for sure.  If it's the CPU overheating though, I would expect the following:

1: That it happened much quicker - temps seem to shoot up almost immediatedly when I put a load on my own CPU.
2: That it would happen again very soon after the first time GTL minimises - if it takes 20 min to overheat, it shouldn't be able to shed the accumulated heat in just a few secs.

How do you apply the thermal paste to the CPU ?  Looking at Arctic Silver's homepage, it seems they recommend the 'vertical line' approach for all non-mobile Core i5 & i7 (not that I've used it on my current CPU myself): http://www.arcticsilver.com/intel_application_method.html#

Cheers,
Erling