PS2: Reaction Time Issues while Recording "Burnout Revenge" footage

In the classic PS2 game Burnout Revenge reaction is quite crucial, be it to avoid other cars or making a proper start in the mode "Crash Party". However, when you record footage it may raises the difficulty level in an interesting way...

As a friend and me have our Crash Party battle from time to time, we decided to now finally record it. Also, he started doing "Let's Plays" on Twitch and YouTube, so it would be appropriate footage for his channel.

For doing that, I used my old Sony RDR HX 680 B DVD and HDD recorder. So I connected the PS2 with a SCART cable to the input slot of the recorder and another SCART cable for the output from the recorder to the TV.

YouTube: Tankh

After a recording test we started playing. A Crash Party with 9 rounds and two players. To quickly explain the starting procedure:
You hit the X button once to start the engine, and as the RPM go higher (seen through a line of fire) you have to press X again (to avoid explosion). Then the line goes down again and you have to press X a third time. Depending on how accurately you press X the second and third time determines how good you start is going to be.

However, as the recording device was between the PS2 and the TV, the screen was probably a few milliseconds behind, causing us players being unable to hit X an the right moment, making the cars either explode and stalling the engine.

As we were first surprised on what happened there, it took as a bit the figure out what's the issue. Ultimately we could adapt to the situation and I even got a score of around 10 million for like three times in a row (see video above).

Quite interesting situation, right? Someone seen that before? I guess the issue is either the SCART cable, the device, or both...

Unrelated, but worth to mention:  How about getting the footage to a PC? There's no other way than burning it on a DVD and then convert the files from the DVD on your PC. I usually use HandBrake for that. The audio was recorded separately and later merged together with the video file.

Fixing HDD and CPU always up to 100%

Today I could fix a case where a computer got incredible slow over the years, but it took to check lots of points...

First of all the issue was initially hard to figure out where it's coming from. 

Either the HDD in the Task Manager went up to 100% or the CPU - or both together. Even when no application was started. Narrowing down which service or application was at fault was difficult as well as it was always another one.

So I tried first with the 'obvious' solution which you find quite often online: Switching off services like 'Windows Search' or 'Superfetch'. Initially it seemed like no change at all. I even checked the hard disk since I even found sites where users where claiming having issues with the Toshiba DT01ACA100. But the HDD was fine so far, nothing visible with checking tools.

So what else... Such issues can come through viruses or malware so I gave Malwarebytes AntiMalware another go. And it found more than 4000 suspicious entries! After clearing them all and going for another reboot, let the software went through after to check if the malware is really gone and suddenly the issues got less!

Surely, right after booting the computer still took a while 'calm down' in terms after processor and hard disk usage. But then you could finally reproduce it by opening the Firefox browser and open certain websites. Or starting MS Office software.

Generally websites using flash took pushed the scale high again, but after certain tests to fix that issue within FF failed and I tried the same with Google Chrome which was faster and and slightly better.

And now after several restarts the computer finally seems fine again - hopefully it remains!

A slowly dying ASUS M5A99X mainboard

Initially the cause wasn't clear. The computer was in some situations very slow and caused problems while agreeing admin permissions to install applications...

First I was informed to take a check from remote, but that wasn't even possible. The other site of the line had problems installing TeamViewer, the computer hanged at the moment UAC popped up for agreeing admin permissions. At the moment nothing happened anymore. After the next restart the computer itself got even slower. A few spots on the taskbar didn't even work anymore.

Seeing the difficult child myself, I just checked the basic stuff: Hard disk is fine, booting an alternate OS by DVD worked without issues, no malware or anything like that. But the issue got worse, at every attempt even slower!

After another test I wasn't able to start the computer anymore. The screen turned on for a moment but that was it. It remained black. Removing all drives didn't make any difference.

Ok.. so what's going on? From now it was clear it's a hardware problem. I did a BIOS reset (RTC RAM), restarted and the boot screen appeared, but unfortunately the screen froze from that moment on. I could press any key for entering Setup or changing the boot order - nothing happen. I turned off and there was the black screen again.

A few other ideas:

• Removing all boot devices (HDD, DVD)
  Booting without any RAM
• Booting without graphics adapter

While doing this tests there wasn't any beeping or difference at all. The motherboard must be damaged! Else there would be any beeping alarm or a kind of warning that something's not attached.

To be sure, I ordered a new Asus M5A99X board in order to make sure it's really the issue. And I was right: I changed the board, moved the CPU, the cooler and everything else to the new motherboard and the computer started again. 

But that's not the end of the story: After a successful restart the problems didn't really vanish. The Windows system was obviously damaged, too. I knew that the hard disk was ok, so I created an image of drive C and reinstalled Windows 10, basic software and updates. Now it's all working as fine as it should be. I copied all necessary files from the image back to the user folders and that was it...

Damn motherboard, whatever happened there...

Project Acer Aspire 5742g - First can't boot, then no AntiVirus

Someone brought me a laptop recently which wasn't able to boot anymore. The issue was solved easily, but after rebooting there was more...

It's all about an Acer Aspire 5742g, around five years old. The computer stops at the BIOS boot screen with the option 'Press <F2> to enter Setup'. Windows didn't boot anymore - at every attempt.

But you could still enter the BIOS and change settings without any freezing or anything. So I took a Live-Windows and booted it from the DVD drive - and it worked. I tested some HDD tools and it was all fine, I also had access to the data, no problem. But it still couldn't boot at all.

Then I opened the laptop and removed the hard disk from its cables to take it out for a few minutes. Couldn't see anything unusual and returned the hard disk back into the laptop. I turned the laptop on again and it suddenly worked, Windows 7 was able to boot.

After a few more starts the issue didn't occur again (even weeks later no problem), but I found out that the anti-virus software wasn't running anymore. And for how long? The owner didn't know. The laptop was also filled with lots of software the user wasn't aware about.

A virus scan with Malwarebytes AntiMalware showed more than 300 infections and we agreed to save the data and reinstall the machine. Better save than sorry.

How to use homebrew software on PS2 - An overview

By the end and after the PS2 era more and more homebrew software was released for the famous console of the early 2000s. After the first step was done, you were able to execute multiple applications.

First, you had to find a way to install 'FreeMCBoot' (in short FMCB) on your Memory Card. I only know two ways to do that: Let someone who already has it install FMCB on your Memory Card or: Buy a network adapter to install a hard disk in the PS2 (of course only possible with the older, bigger model), install an ISO image with homebrew software on your hard drive and boot it with a special CD.

Installing FMCB

I would recommend to use the Windows tool WinHIIP for that: Connect the IDE hard drive either with an USB adapter or with an IDE cable with your PC. Start the tool and select the ISO you want to install (it's usually used for games). Before using it the hard drive must be formatted in PFS which is possible with WinHIIP.

Following that the hard disk has to get back in the PS2 again. The previously called 'special CD' is something like 'HD Advance' or any other software which was sold with the network adapter to use the hard disk.

So after booting the CD you'll end up in the menu with all on the hard disk installed PS2 games - including the ISO with homebrew software. This image should include the software 'ULaunchELF', a software - as the name says - able to execute ELF files.

ULaunchELF is a kind of file explorer for the PlayStation 2. You can even plug in an USB flash drive (in FAT32 of course) and use it for saving and executing files. ELF files - which means "executable and linkable format" - can now be used from this point. You only need some of them.

But now you should use the opportunity to install "FMCB" by launching the installation files from either an USB drive or from the hard drive. Make sure that you have some space on your Memory Card. It takes something around 2 MB which is crucial because the Memory Cards usually had 8 MB space.

From that point your boot menu is extended and you can add more software in the list by using the configurator.

Which opportunities do you get?

You can use the 'Simple Media System' - short 'SMS Player' to use your PS2 as a media center with files even on your external HDD. Unfortunately because there was no further development you can't play all media files. Especially the mp4 format does not work, while at least most of the avi files run.

Some minigames are available like rebuilds of Space Invaders, Tetris or even Super Mario - to be started as a single ELF.

Keyword emulators: There's a selection of ways to play games from older consoles like NES, SNES, GB, C64 and much more. In the last years there was even a PlayStation 1 emulator for its successor. Unfortunately a bit slow, but you can't expect miracles by starting such big games from the flash drive...

The ESR shows an alternate way to play copied games from the disk without having a special chip. A game with a special ESR patch can be started from the FMCB menu.

There are also alternate ways to start games from your hard drive: With the OpenPS2Loader you can not only launch games from your HDD - you can also create Virtual Memory Cards (VMC) to have your savegames on your HDD in a special folder. And there's more: You can use your FAT32 external hard drive or a public folder in your network to store your games instead of an internal hard drive. And despite we have already 2015 - there's still development!

Summary

Even in this short overview you can see the amount of opportunities you have once the PS2 has the ability to launch ELF files. It just shows extended features beyond the basic firmware. 

Of course the successor PS3 has way more to offer in the homebrew area, but in the PS2 era the firmware didn't change like every week - just with the release of newer models - which makes the homebrew usage a lot easier.

WiFi connection problems with TP Link TL-WN823N

After the first time using the TP Link wifi stick WN823N it worked for a whole evening. But the next day a WiFi connection was suddenly no longer possible...

After a few tests with different USB ports and another reboot failed to solve this issue I thought:

'The last reinstallation of this Windows 7 PC was at the beginning of last year and I already should have done it weeks ago. So let's do this first and the problem might be solved in the same step.'

Interestingly, I was right, but only for like thirty seconds. The same issue occured once again and didn't disappear. Maybe I should explain more detailed what happened:

The WiFi signal was always perfect as it should be. But every connection attempt failed - it didn't make a difference when I used the TP Link configuration tool.

But the WiFi stick was still fine as I tested with an Windows 8.1 laptop. So I installed an extra USB port on the mainboard and the issue still remained. The firmware hasn't been updated for a longer time - so that's not it...

Finally I decided to change the WiFi encryption on the router from WPA with TKIP (which I used for testing reasons) to WPA2 with CCMP.

And then all of the sudden: Issue solved! I deleted the old WiFi settings in Windows, reconnect with the WiFi, typed in the PSK and it was working.

But that was only for a day and it happened again. After checking the event log it couldn't have been much simpler: Several hard disk failures! 

So I installed Windows on another hard disk again and these problems didn't occur another time.