FireDaemon

Speeding up your SRCDS Server/Increasing System Speed

You can drastically increase the speed of your Windows SRCDS server with the following trick:

Download this tool and leave it running all the time. It’s best to give it its own FireDaemon service. You can also accomplish the same thing by running “Windows Media Player” but WMP uses far more memory (around 30MB compared to this app that uses 4MB).  You might be wondering what it does exactly?  Well it increases your server FPS by increasing windows responsiveness to download packets.  In other words, it increases the timer frequency.  By default, SRCDS servers run at 256FPS.  With this little tool running, you can run the server over 512FPS !

There is another very very useful thing about this tool.  It also increases general system responsiveness. This means that windows will load faster and so will any games you play!  It’s also good to use it on web servers.

As far as i know there is no adverse problems with using the tool 24/7 as Windows Media Player itself does the same thing and Microsoft never issued any warnings.

Troubleshooting SRCDS Crashes

The majority of Source Engine crashes are due to plugin errors and exceeding engine limits on maps. When you’re faced with a constant crash on your server, there are a few steps you should take to pinpoint the culprit.

First ask yourself a few questions: Does it always happen on the same map? Were players in the server when it crashed? Does it crash on startup or on map change?  Once you have the answers to these questions you can then start troubleshooting.

First off, try running the server with no plugins.  This means dont load metamod, sourcemod, Eventscripts, etc.  Let the server run like this for a few days.  If there are no crashes then you’ve at least pinpointed that its not a corrupt installation.  If it still crashes, than either you have a misconfigured CVAR or your installation is corrupt (delete all steam files and re-run the update process).  You will know if there is a crash by looking in the root directory of the server for MDMP files, MDMP files are created whenever you server crashes and are created at the time of the crash.  You can’t see whats in the MDMP file though, only the developer of the mod or game can.  MDMP files are just usefull so you know the date and time of the crash.

To troubleshoot plugin problems, first try running the server with the default plugins that came with your administration tool.  Than every day or few days after that add 3 to 6 of the custom plugins you are using.  If the server crashes again, than its likely one of the last few plugins you added so remove a few of them and let the server run for a few days again. This method can take a few days to a few weeks, but its the best way to find the plugin that is causing the crashes.

Chapter 5: Should i upgrade my computer?

Generally speaking if you use your computer for light load things like composing emails, writing, or surfing the internet you do not need to upgrade your computer.  If you’re stressed by how slow your computer is though, first try the things outlined in previous chapters before considering to buy a new computer.

If you are a gamer and play games on your computer, chances are you will need to upgrade your computer every 2 to 4 years to be able to play the latest games.

Upgrading can be a costly practice, especially when the majority of your computer needs upgrading.  For the most part, you can get away with upgrading 1 or 2 components in your computer to get a speed boost, but sometimes this isint enough.

A good cheap computer costs anywhere from $200 to $500 or more.  Gamers on the other hand generally want the fastest hardware available and new computer purchases can easily get up to $2000 or more.

You have 2 choices when purchasing a computer.  Purchasing locally or purchasing from one of the giant computer companies (eg. IBM, Dell, Compaq, etc.).  I recommend you stay away from the big companies.  Sure their prices might look good, but when your computer breaks down you will have to mail it to them and it often takes many weeks or months before you will get your computer back.  For this reason alone, i recommend you buy your computer from a local computer store.  I dont mean Best Buy where you buy their Dell computer.  You would still need to ship it to Dell when it breaks down.  I’m talking about your local computer store where they build the computer themselves.  Besides having your computer repaired much faster, you might even get a deal and pay less than if you went with the Big Companies.  On top of this you are supporting your local economy which is good for everyone in your area.

And so ends this Computer Tutorial; I’ve covered all the major categories.

In the coming week’s i will be concentrating on Gaming News with Software security updates mixed in.

Chapter 4: Disaster Recovery

Computers like all electronics can suffer catastrophic breakdowns. But for a computer it is usually much more severe since you can lose data in the process.

Things like viruses and other internet security threats can delete your files. Hardware failure is another thing that can and will happen at some point in the future.

To prevent your files from getting wiped by a virus or other undesirable follow the steps in the previous chapter. If your computer is already infected, then you are in big trouble.

Things to look out for if you think you are infected are:

• Lots of applications crash
• Blue error screens
• OS is extremely slow
• Programs take a long time to start or never start at all

Viruses for the most are programmed to be as stealthy and resistant to cleaning as possible. They might infect your boot record, your files or hide in your memory. Some viruses are so difficult to remove, that your files cannot be recovered and they will be lost forever. Another thing that viruses do is disable your security software (Anti-Virus, Anti-Malware, etc.). The AV software might appear to be working and when you manually scan it might even appear to be scanning. But it doesnt detect anything.

In these cases where you are sure you have a virus and you want to get rid of it, use an online anti-virus scanner. Viruses can still disable these types of scanners, and its a last resort before formatting. I recommend you use Trend Micro Housecall. It detects lots of viruses and offers to clean them (not many online virus scanners will clean). The main problem with using these online scanners are privacy concerns as the list of files on your system may be transmitted to the company who made the scanner. You will need to check the company’s privacy policy if you are worried about this.

If you still can’t remove or find a virus, your best bet is to take your computer to a computer store and have them get rid of the virus for you. Generally this isn’t that expensive. Maybe around $45 or more.

Another thing that can happen is hardware failure. All components in your computer have an MTBF. MTBF stands for “Mean Time Before Failure”. This translates into the amount of time before the hardware will fail. Some hardware has a high MTBF whereas other hardware has a low MTBF.

Brand Name vs No Name hardware
Brand name for the most part has a high MTBF. Generally because they are better made, have better warranties but usually cost more. Noname hardware on the other hand typically has a low MTBF because they are cheaply made. This is not always the case, but 75% of the time it usually is.

If your hard drive fails and you have important data on it with no backups. In short; you’re in trouble. There is one thing you can try, it sounds odd but some have said it actually works. Remote your hard drive from your computer and place it in the freezer for a few hours and then quickly plug it back in to your computer and move the data to another harddrive or CD/DVD disc.

If the above didn’t work and you still really need your data, you will have to take your hard drive to a data recovery specialist. This is very very costly and there is no guarantee on how much data they will be able to recover. Generally it costs $500 or more to recover a hard drive.

Of course you can avoid all these scenario’s i have explained by simply making a backup. Backup’s should be made on a daily, weekly or monthly basis at most. If your computer does not have a CD/DVD Burner, then you can always get a new hard drive and back up to that (i recommend Seagate or Western Digital for hard drives, they are the 2 best companies).

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Chapter 3: Computer Security

Computer’s suffer from security issues like everything else. Probably more so. As such, you need to keep your computer secure. Aside from potential data loss and theft of personal information, you may be liable to legal implications if your computer is used to commit illegal activies by hackers. For instance, millions of computers around the world have been taken over by hackers and placed into groups of hacked computers called BotNets. BotNets can carry out internet attacks, send out spam, etc. Most of the people who own computers in these Bot Nets don’t even know it … You might even be in one them right now!

Definitions:
Virus: A computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer without the permission or knowledge of the owner.
Trojan: A Trojan horse, or trojan for short, is a term used to describe malware that appears, to the user, to perform a desirable function but, in fact, facilitates unauthorized access to the user’s computer system.
Spyware: Spyware is a type of malware that is installed on computers and that collects information about users without their knowledge.
Malware: Malware, short for malicious software, is software designed to infiltrate a computer without the owner’s informed consent.
Freeware: Computer software that is available for use at no cost or for an optional fee.

The first and foremost thing you should do is always keep your operating system up-to-date. Exploits and vulnerabilities are the first thing that can get your computer compromised. Microsoft releases updates on the 2nd Tuesday of each month. Update during that time, or even better put your computer on automatic updates (click here for info on how to turn Automatic Updates on).

There are a variety of anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-malware and firewall applications available on the market. The most popular anti virus products are McAfee Anti-Virus, Symantec Anti-Virus and Kaspersky Anti-Virus. While there aren’t any major differences between the products in terms of detection of viruses, there might be some feature differences. The problem with these 3 most popular AV products is that they use a lot of system resources. If you have a slow computer, or you are a gamer, you will notice that your computer will run slower. I recommend you use Eset NOD32. It’s just as powerful as the major 3 (if not more in some ways) and it uses a fraction amount of system resources.

A firewall is a part of a computer system or network that is designed to block unauthorized access while permitting authorized communications. The most popular software firewalls are Symantec, ZoneAlarm and the built-in one in Windows. If you are using the built-in one in Windows, i suggest you use one of the others (Symantec, ZoneAlarm, etc.) the windows one is very basic and doesn’t offer very good protection.

Below is some other software programs you should have installed on your computer to protect it:

Spybot Search & Destroy (Freeware)
Spybot Search & Destroy is the best known and widely used Spyware scanner and cleaner.

Spyware Blaster (Freeware)
Spyware Blaster prevents the installation of spyware and other potentially unwanted software.

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware (Freeware)
Malwarebytes Anti-Malware is a very powerful malware scanner. It makes a very good companion to the other Malware scanners. It picks up a lot of stuff the others do not detect.

Super AntiSpyware (Freeware)
Another spyware scanner, this one doesn’t have anything too special about it, but it does detect stuff the other Spyware scanners do not.

Prevx (Yearly Fee)
Prevx is a computer application designed for the removal of and protection from malware. This one is probably the most important thing you need. It scans your computer in the background and prevents damaging programs from starting. It requires an active internet connection to function, so if you are on dial-up and you are offline; it won’t work.

So in summary you should keep your Windows OS up to date and Install Anti-Virus, Firewall, Anti-Spyware and Anti-Malware scanners. You should also manually run a scan with all your installed security products at least once per month.

P.S. Do not forget to keep all your security applications updated. They need updates to keep detecting new threats.

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Chapter 2: PC Maintenace

Computers, over time slow down. This is due to the installation of software, fragmented hard drive, temporary files, etc. With constant maintenance you can eliminate or decrease these slow downs.

One of the thing’s that slow down a computer is the accumulation of temporary files. Temporary files can be files that are left over after the installation of software, browser caches, etc. I recommend you clean out your temporary files at least once per week. Aside from slowing down your computer, they can also take massive amounts of hard disk space. So if you’ve noticed you’re running low, chances are you can recover a few MB to GB of space. I am not kidding. Once many years ago i noticed that my hard drive was low. I cleaned out my Temporary files and recovered 2 GB!!!

Windows has its own temporary files cleaner, but it isin’t very complete. I recommend you use a freeware software product called CCleaner. CCleaner can clean out your browser caches (from most browsers), as well as recent file lists for a variety of applications. It also has a registry function that repairs inconsistencies and errors in your windows registry.

Before continuing with the next part of this chapter, run the Cleaner and Registry modes of CCleaner.

Now that your hard drive has the useless clutter removed we can go onto the real bottleneck. Your hard drive.

Hard drive’s store data where there is free space and when you delete a file, that sector on the hard drive is marked as free. So after a period of time your hard drive has random places all over that are free and files can be spread all over the hard drive platter. What this means is that your file might actually be in pieces on your hard drive. It takes a few extra seconds to read your file when this happens and it puts stress on the hard drive read head and thus reduces the lifetime of your hard drive. The only way to combat this is to regularly defragment your hard drive. Defragging moves the data of your files into one continuous section. So your files will be read faster. To give you an example of how efficient defragging is. Many years ago, when i first learned about defragging i hadn’t defragged for several years. After i defragged, there was around a 60% increase in file read time. My operating system was running fast again.

Windows has its own defragmenter, but the problem with it is that it cannot be scheduled and its not very comprehensive. For this reason, i recommend you use MyDefrag. MyDefrag is the successor to JKDefrag and its a freeware disk defragmenter. What’s really good about it is that it can be scheduled (with windows scheduler) plus its defragmentation is a lot stronger than window’s built-in deframenter.

Depending on how often you use your computer, i suggest you defrag once per week to once per month at most.

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Chapter 1: Getting your hands dirty

Before proceeding with this tutorial, please be advised that FireDaemon in no event will we be liable for any loss or damage including without limitation, indirect or consequential loss or damage, or any loss or damage whatsoever arising from loss of data or profits arising out of, or in connection with, the use of this tutorial.

If you aren’t comfortable with cleaning your computer yourself, you can take it in to a computer store and they will do it for you. It usually costs around $60 for them to clean it for you though.

Now that that’s out of the way, onto cleaning!

Contrary to popular belief, your computer is not only the screen; it’s actually the big “box” next to your screen or below your desk. The box or as its known “case” holds all the parts of your computer that make it work. Read the steps below to clean your tower:

1. Unplug all the connections from the back of the case. It might be helpfull if you take a picture so you know where to plug everything back afterwords.
2. At the back of the case, unscrew the screws (usually theres 4, 2 on each side of the case).
3. Slide the cover off carefully.  It’s edges are sharp so be careful not to cut yourself.
4. BEFORE TOUCHING ANYTHING, GROUND YOURSELF!  Grounding yourself is as simple as touching the metal case or another metal object.  Static electricity will kill your computer so you must make sure you are grounded before you touch the inside of your computer. It’s also best if you work on your case while its on a table or non-carpeted floor.  Static electricity builds up really easily on fabric surfaces.  You also shouldn’t be wearing a sweater, wear a t-shirt instead so the sleeves dont rub up against the inside of the tower.
5. Also, DO NOT USE WATER to clean your case.  Just use the compressed air and the cotton swabs with nothing on them.
6. I found a video on youtube that will walk you through cleaning your case:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFTJpGCfTBo
7. One thing that the video does not mention is the following: Use the cotton swaps to clean each of the fan blades.  Often dust gets “baked” onto the fan blades and no amount of compressed air will remove it.
8. Reassemble the case, reconnect the connectors and plug everything back in.

To clean your monitor, take a paper towel and spray some of the “Endust for Electronics” on it, and lightly wipe your screen.  If your screen is LCD, do not press down as it will damage it.

To clean an optical mouse, take a cotton swab and stick it into the optical slot on bottom of mouse and twist the cotton swab a few times.  To clean a ball mouse, twist the cover on the back of the mouse and remove the ball.  Clean the ball with a paper towel and “Endust for Electronics”, also clean the tiny rods with a Cotton Swab that is partially saturated with “Endust for Electronics”.  Let it dry and put it back together.

The keyboard is the most bacteria infested part of your computer. People rarely if ever clean it. To give you an example of how gross it is, some scientists did a study and found the following on keyboards: hair, saliva, urine, fingernails, food, flu virus, cold virus, etc.

To truly clean your keyboard its best to remove all the keys, but that can be confusing to put them back in the correct order, so instead get a vacuum cleaner nozzle attachment and hold it as close as possible to the keys. You can also use “Endust for Electronics” on a paper tower to clean the keyboard.
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Chapter 1: Tools of the trade

Before you can start cleaning, you need to assemble the tools you will use.

From Left to Right: Can of Compressed Air, Endust for Electronics (Cleaner), Philips Head Screwdriver, Flat Head Screwdriver, Cotton Swabs and a Vacuum with a tube type attachment (not pictured).

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Chapter 1: Heat is the enemy.

Computers, like all electronic devices give off heat.  But for computers heat can cause them to fail.  That’s why it’s important to keep your case clean.  Most people rarely or never clean their cases.  I remember once during my internship, I was fixing one of the employees’ computers and I opened the case.  What I saw shocked and disgusted me.  There was a 1 inch layer of dust on everything.  I couldn’t believe it.

At the minimum you should clean your computer every 3 to 6 months or a year at the most if you can’t do it earlier.  My next blog post will include details on how to do this.

P.S.  Do not try cleaning your computer yet, as you can damage it.  Wait for my next blog entry.

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Tags: FireDaemon Tips & Tricks, PC Maintenance