Winner: Assetto Corsa
Arguably the best and most realistic physics from any sim racing game. The cars handle the way you would expect and they just feel right.
Best PC Racing Sim For Sounds
Winners: Raceroom , DiRT Rally
Best PC Racing Sim For Tracks
Winners: Project CARS for numbers, Assetto Corsa or iRacing for quality
Best PC Racing Sim For Cars (Great Models)
Winners: Assetto Corsa , Project CARS
Best PC Racing Sim For Graphics
Winner: Project CARS
Best PC Racing Sim For FBB (Force Feedback)
Winner: rFactor 2
Assetto Corsa is also great, but rFactor 2 is better at this.
Best PC Racing Sim For AI (Artificial Intelligence)
Winner: Stock Car Extreme or RaceRoom (SCE is a little better)
Above picture shows a CH341A Serial Flash Programmer
Read my previous post HERE to know other available methods to re-flash a corrupted BIOS.
I tweak my motherboard's BIOS too often and always end up with a corrupted BIOS. So I need a quick and easy solution to fix this annoying problem. I realised that it's possible to use a serial flash programmer (SPI programmer) to write your corrupted bios chip (serial flash) but most of well known branded BIOS chip writers (SPIs) were expensive ( between $50 to $500).
However you can find above dirt cheap CH341A serial flash programmer under $3 from eBay. It's from china , cheap but gets the work done!
First I had to make sure if my chip model is supported. It was an MX 25L8005PC. Just ignore the last 2 revision letters, as long as other letters match it will work.
So I found that CH341A SPI supports many serial flash chip models , I've added the list at the end of this post. Apparently it support almost every BIOS chip you can find in a PC motherboard.
So I ordered an USB CH341A Series Serial Flash Programmer which cost me less than $3 with shipping. Seller gave me a software which required to operate the SPI programmer.
Then I followed these steps,
1. used a working PC
2. plugged the CH341A device to a USB port.
3. Attached the corrupted BIOS chip to the CH341A's socket ( I had to make sure the pins are attached correctly. If pins are not connected to the corresponding hole it won't work).
4. Downloaded the latest BIOS update from my motherboard vendor's website. It came with few files and contained the BIOS.BIN file which is the actual BIOS update.
5. Used the CH341A software , erased the corrupted chip, imported the BIOS.BIN file into the software and wrote the chip with it.
6. Then plugged the BIOS chip back into my motherboard and it worked flawlessly!
Now I can use this programmer whenever I corrupt my BIOS. Which is very convenient.
However originally the CH341A software was in Chinese. It's language can be changed to English by modifying a settings file. I found someone has posted a video on how to do that as well as how to use this tool. You might find it's useful.
Here's the CH341A supported chip list according to the seller.
Few months ago, one day, my PC suddenly stopped working. Whenever I turn it on , it would spin it's CPU fan a second or two then stop. This kept happening over and over again. (after a while it only spinned once ). It turns on LEDs but it wouldn't POST (Power On Self Test).
Then I tried everything possible to fix it. Disassembled each and every part reassembled, and tried to identify the root cause by booting the PC after removing each component.
However I noticed that even when I removed all the components including graphics card and RAM sticks, motherboard did not gave any beep codes. It didn't identify anything. That's when I figured out the problem must be with the motherboard itself not with the RAM, graphics card etc. And Intel CPUs hardly die, I've never heard of such an instance.
When most people find out that their motherboard is gone, what they do is purchase a new one (if warranty period is over). But most of dead motherboard issues are caused due to corrupted BIOS chip. All you have to do is re-flash your BIOS chip. To do this make sure your motherboard has a socketed BIOS chip which can be removed and plug back easily.
Most BIOS chips looks like this
Location of this chip can differ from one motherboard to another.
These are programmable serial flash memories.
My motherboard had a MX 25L8005PC serial flash installed. Which is a very common in most motherboards.
All you have to do is take out this chip and re-flash it with a fresh BIOS update, plug the chip back in it's socket , and you're done! Your dead motherboard will be back to life once again.
Then I researched on how to re flash a corrupted BIOS. And I came up with 3 possible solutions.
An MX25L8005PC serial flash
1.Buying an already flashed BIOS chip from eBay:
This is the first method I tried and it worked flawlessly. It cost me $11 including overseas shipping. This cost is lot less than buying a new motherboard , specially if your motherboard is a high end gaming one.Seller shipped this so fast and it arrived within a week. There are few eBay sellers who sells almost every available BIOS chips programmed with the requested BIOS update.
However until this item arrives I tried other options as well , as I wanted to fix my motherboard as soon as possible. So I came up with two other options listed below.
2. Hot Swap your BIOS chip and re-flash:
Hot Swapping is a technique used to flash bios using another similar motherboard. You need to have access to a exact same motherboard model (different models with same chip might work). I tried this method as well and I can confirm it works flawlessly! I wrote a separate post about how I did it. See below,
3. Re-flash your BIOS chip with a chip writer ( Serial flash programmer)
This is a risk-free method and all you need is a Serial Flash Programmer. I tried both above methods and they work great, but I am a person who play with BIOS settings too often and end up corrupting sooner or later. So I needed a quick solution that let me fix corrupted BIOS instantly without spending anymore money or without bothering someone else to risk their motherboard for another hot-swap. So finally this 3rd method was the perfect method I've ever tried. I wrote a separate post about how I did it. See below,
Read my previous post HERE to know other available methods to re-flash a corrupted BIOS.
When my motherboard's bios chip got corrupted I used this technique to fix it. And it worked flawlessly. To make it work 100% successfully you need to make sure you have access to another PC with the exact same motherboard model. Luckily I have a friend who had the exact same motherboard. And make sure it has a socketed BIOS chip (not soldered in to the board).
What you have to do is boot the working PC into DOS , and swap the corrupted BIOS chip with the working chip while PC is still up and running and perform the BIOS update.
BIOS chip looks like this
WARNING: Hot-Swappingis not for everyone. This is a risky method and you will end up corrupting other working BIOS as well. If you are planning to do this, try this at your own risk.
My motherboard was a Foxconn. I dowloaded latest BIOS update from their website. This BIOS update file comes with an executable MS-DOS program which can be used to easily update the BIOS.
I used my usb flash drive and made it a bootable DOS drive. This can be easily done with Rufus tool.
Then copied the BIOS updated to the usb drive.
Then I booted my friend PC into DOS using this usb stick. While PC is still ON and running DOS , I removed the working BIOS chip. Before I did this, I had to loosen the chip from it's socket first. Loosened as much as possible until it merely touched the socket. Otherwise it would've been harder to remove the chip while PCs running and I might have ended up short circuit something.
Then I plugged my corrupted chip to the socket of the running PC and performed the BIOS update by executing the dos program. It was an award BIOS and it's BIOS-update file set came with an autoexec.bat file which contained all the required commands. All I had to do was run this autoexec.bat file. If you like to manually input commands HERE's a good guide on how to do that with Award BIOS and AMI BIOS.
Then updated was successful, and I turned off the PC. Removed my BIOS chip from the socket and plugged back my friends chip in to the socket. Then later I plugged my flashed BIOS into my previously dead motherboard and boom! It worked flawlessly!! PC turned on like nothing ever happened!
This may work with different motherboards if the chip is exactly same. For e.g. my chip number was MX 25L8005PC. Once I tried to flash this with a different motherboard that had a different chip as well (MX 25L4****) and it didn't work. However it might work if the chip number is same.
Make sure to use YOUR motherboard's BIOS-update files, when updating YOUR chip even with a different motherboard model.
Why does this work?
When PC is booted and running POST module is no longer used it's possible to even remove your BIOS chip and still run the PC until another restart. This makes us to use this opportunity to re flash a corrupted BIOS using a PC with a working BIOS.
Many people who have received above message can no longer access iPhone's message app. And many article on internet mentions that you can fix this by sending back a reply to the original sender (or original sender must send some other normal message).
There are number of methods to try sending a message mentioned by online articles. Unfortunately none of them worked for me. Including SIRI method, Image sharing method etc.
However I found this app called Unshortener , which has an option to send an SMS. And this app previews the message history of your Message App when a sender's name typed in the "To:" field! (see pic 2)
All you have to do is , go through all the people's messages who sent you that 'crash message' and send them back a normal message ( something like "test"). Then it will magically fix everything and you will be able to open Messages app again.
For those who do not wish to read the full article and try the settings right away here are the settings. G27 Profiler Global Settings
G27 Specific Game Settings
Grid Autosport In-game Vibration Settings
There you go! Need a little explanation? Read on, For simplicity sake I've set exact same values for both Global and Game specific settings. This will make sure we are getting exact same settings from the Logitech profiler. Most important thing in these settings is setting the "Centering Spring Strength" to "0". And also make sure "Enable Centering Spring" is checked. You might be wondering that there's no point of enabling this option unless you set the spring strength to something other than "0". I had the same question until I actually test it myself. I'll explain this later in this article.
