Ok, I'm running WIndows 2000 Server. I am running with an AMD 1900 with 1gig of ram. I am using a Geforce FX 5600 AGP video card with 256 megs of ram.
I have been trying to run two separate sessions simultaneously in full screen and alt-tabbing between the sessions. I can load up the two eq sessions with no problems and they run VERY smoothly.
However, after a few minutes of playing I have windows pop up titled "Windows - Delayed Write Failed". The text in the window reads as follows:
Windows was unable to save all the data for the file \Deavice\HarddiskVolume1\$Mft. The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connnection. Please try to save this file elsewhere.
Initially I suspected this was low hard drive space. At first I had only ~750 megs of space available on my hard drive so I erased a few gigs of data, the problem continued.
I then rebooted and turned on the task manager to monitor CPU usage and memory usage. CPU usage often goes up to near 100% but there is always 400+ megs of available memory when I am running two instances.
I also suspected (who knows why) that this might be an issue caused by having both instances of EQ using the same UI or INI file. I changed it so both instances had separate INI files and UI directories.
Anyway, any advice would be appreciated. Even when this error pops up both instances of EQ remain very stable but it is a pain in the butt to deal with the errors popping up continually.
Thanks in advance.
Dave.
Error --> Windows - Delayed Write Failed
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Something else that might be interesting to add...
I was playing through WinEQ but with only one instance of EQ for a while after trying to figure out the solution to my problem and I started getting the same errors with only one instance of EQ when I went into PoK.
I should also respond to the last authors comment. I hope that it is not a failing hard drive, that would surpise me. I do not get that error at any time other than when I am using WinEQ so I'm going to hold off on jumping to any conclusions about my hard drive failing just yet.
How would I go about disabling the delayed write thingie? I might mess around with that.
Oh, I also defragged my hard drive today just for fun.
Wish me luck.
I was playing through WinEQ but with only one instance of EQ for a while after trying to figure out the solution to my problem and I started getting the same errors with only one instance of EQ when I went into PoK.
I should also respond to the last authors comment. I hope that it is not a failing hard drive, that would surpise me. I do not get that error at any time other than when I am using WinEQ so I'm going to hold off on jumping to any conclusions about my hard drive failing just yet.
How would I go about disabling the delayed write thingie? I might mess around with that.
Oh, I also defragged my hard drive today just for fun.
Wish me luck.
Well, I still haven't come up with a solution to this problem.
I googled that error message and hit half a dozen sites including the the MS help site.
I attempted disabling the 'write cache' for the hard drive under device manager. This didn't seem to help at all. In fact I crashed when I tried this and chkdsk picked up a bunch of errors upon reboot.
Shortly after this happened I tried running two instances of EQ with EQ Play Nice but no WinEQ and I started getting the same errors for the first time when not running WinEQ.
The one thing that has changed on my system since I installed WinEQ (other than the installation itself) is that I put another 512 megs of ram in the machine.
It seems to me that the most consistent variable in place when I start getting these errors is lots of overall stress on the system. CPU use hovering around 100%, system RAM use going over 500 megs, etc. It seems to get worse the more stress I put on the system. The other thing that I've noticed is that these errors often pop up when I do something like open a bag or cast a spell or something.
Anyway, Lax, if you have any suggestions at all I would be much appreciative. If you can help me work through this I will gladly become a paying customer.
Thanks.
Dave.
I googled that error message and hit half a dozen sites including the the MS help site.
I attempted disabling the 'write cache' for the hard drive under device manager. This didn't seem to help at all. In fact I crashed when I tried this and chkdsk picked up a bunch of errors upon reboot.
Shortly after this happened I tried running two instances of EQ with EQ Play Nice but no WinEQ and I started getting the same errors for the first time when not running WinEQ.
The one thing that has changed on my system since I installed WinEQ (other than the installation itself) is that I put another 512 megs of ram in the machine.
It seems to me that the most consistent variable in place when I start getting these errors is lots of overall stress on the system. CPU use hovering around 100%, system RAM use going over 500 megs, etc. It seems to get worse the more stress I put on the system. The other thing that I've noticed is that these errors often pop up when I do something like open a bag or cast a spell or something.
Anyway, Lax, if you have any suggestions at all I would be much appreciative. If you can help me work through this I will gladly become a paying customer.
Thanks.
Dave.
Just my 2 cents.......
Sounds to me looking at from a tech point of view.....
The system works fine except when under heavy load, this is the time you find out any system errors(When under heavy load conditions i.e. burning in a computer when built). If the only thing you have changed in your system before having this problem is adding a memory chip then I would of course be looking at that first. Question would be, Was the system functioning attempting the same thing before the memory was installed? If the answer is yes then the next question pertaining to the memory would be this, is the system getting to the new or old memories heat threshold? It's possible that the inside of your system is reaching a temperature that is making your system ram, video ram or CPU to hit a fail point, adding the chip decreases the amount of existing airflow inside the case causing a slitght shift in temperature and if you were close the the heat threshold already this would be enough to reach it. Also is the new memory chip the same brand as the one you had before? Some offmarket brands will not function exactly in sync with all other memory chips, Is the speed of the new chip the same as the existing chip? If you are running say a single channel and a dual channel chip side by side this could perhaps cause communication problems. Just a couple cents . Cut off here to keep from being seen as a babbler:-)
The system works fine except when under heavy load, this is the time you find out any system errors(When under heavy load conditions i.e. burning in a computer when built). If the only thing you have changed in your system before having this problem is adding a memory chip then I would of course be looking at that first. Question would be, Was the system functioning attempting the same thing before the memory was installed? If the answer is yes then the next question pertaining to the memory would be this, is the system getting to the new or old memories heat threshold? It's possible that the inside of your system is reaching a temperature that is making your system ram, video ram or CPU to hit a fail point, adding the chip decreases the amount of existing airflow inside the case causing a slitght shift in temperature and if you were close the the heat threshold already this would be enough to reach it. Also is the new memory chip the same brand as the one you had before? Some offmarket brands will not function exactly in sync with all other memory chips, Is the speed of the new chip the same as the existing chip? If you are running say a single channel and a dual channel chip side by side this could perhaps cause communication problems. Just a couple cents . Cut off here to keep from being seen as a babbler:-)
Quick add on here.....
One way to attempt to take possible heat issue away, take the side of the case off and setup a desk fan or something similar close to it blowing on it. If the same thing still happens then not likely to be heat related, with 512mb ram if you turn all the models off you should be able to run 2 instances of wineq so take out the new memory chip and attempt that, with win2000 the memory overhead may make it difficult to successfully play 2 instances but you should still be able to load to instances I would think, if the problem disappears then you know for sure that it's the new memory or memory bank on the motherboard
I had the same problem, i solved it by moving EQ to another physical drive than windows. I had windows on a 10 gig partition at the start of the drive, and eq on the big part of the drive. I put in a 10 gig drive just for windows, and that solved it for me. For me that points towards the drive simply not being able to follow up with all the activity of windows + 2 x EQ.
A memtest86 run or two on your ram would be wise too, you never know and memtest86 is quite good at finding errors (found a crossover error on one of my older chips, which, when removed, made my server function well again. Reinstall needed offcause)
Edit: this was on WinXP, but i dont think theres enough difference between em to invalidate it.
A memtest86 run or two on your ram would be wise too, you never know and memtest86 is quite good at finding errors (found a crossover error on one of my older chips, which, when removed, made my server function well again. Reinstall needed offcause)
Edit: this was on WinXP, but i dont think theres enough difference between em to invalidate it.
I have basically come to the conclusion that this is an issue of brand mismatched sticks of ram.
I won't get into ALL of the trouble shooting that I've done but basically everything works well with either one of the two sticks of 512 megs of ram. There are performance issues with only one but everything is more or less stable, just very slow. With the two sticks I get the errors. So basically I've come to the conclusion that it is either A) brand mismatched ram issues or B) motherboard has issues with two sticks of ram (this comes from the hardware guy that I bought most of my stuff from, news to me but he's the hardware guy).
Anyway, I considered the possibility that my issue was a weak hard drive but the fact that 1 stick is stable (with just 512 megs and all the movement of the swap file resulting from 2 instances of EQ) implies to me that it isn't a hard drive issue.
I will however test that theory out when I get a few minutes. Is this 'memtest86' something I will find when I google or is it something I should already be familiar with?
Thanks.
Dave.
I won't get into ALL of the trouble shooting that I've done but basically everything works well with either one of the two sticks of 512 megs of ram. There are performance issues with only one but everything is more or less stable, just very slow. With the two sticks I get the errors. So basically I've come to the conclusion that it is either A) brand mismatched ram issues or B) motherboard has issues with two sticks of ram (this comes from the hardware guy that I bought most of my stuff from, news to me but he's the hardware guy).
Anyway, I considered the possibility that my issue was a weak hard drive but the fact that 1 stick is stable (with just 512 megs and all the movement of the swap file resulting from 2 instances of EQ) implies to me that it isn't a hard drive issue.
I will however test that theory out when I get a few minutes. Is this 'memtest86' something I will find when I google or is it something I should already be familiar with?
Thanks.
Dave.
Mismatched memory.....
You got the problem there, if it works with both sticks seperate but not with both then the brand or type mismatch is all that is left saving that there is a problem in your onboard bank. As for the hard drive if you are running windows 98+ on a drive that is only 10gb and then eq on the same then the virtual memory setting not being set at a max will cause the free drive space to be eaten alive in lue of virtual memory, a fix to this would be to go into your virtual drive settings and set a minimum maximum virtual memory size, but the best fix would be to not try to run eq on a drive that is down probably to 1-2gb free space or less.
The only other trouble shooting I would recommend on the memory if your Motherboard allows it is to switch the single memory stick into the second bank just to make sure that it's not the memory bank having errors but my bet would be the different brands of memory especially if it PNY memory
The only other trouble shooting I would recommend on the memory if your Motherboard allows it is to switch the single memory stick into the second bank just to make sure that it's not the memory bank having errors but my bet would be the different brands of memory especially if it PNY memory
After an incredible amount of troubleshooting I ended up buying a new motherboard (the old one had a blown capacitor anyway) and getting a gig of new ram to go with it.
The error started occurring again after a few days.
Conclusion? Reformatted and switched over to XP and the problem went away entirely.
Bah!
Yen.
The error started occurring again after a few days.
Conclusion? Reformatted and switched over to XP and the problem went away entirely.
Bah!
Yen.