Chandy Posted April 6, 2008 Share Posted April 6, 2008 G'day, I have a persistent problem with flight simming and my computer: Since Sept/Oct 07 while flying in FSX my computer will often turn itself completely and instantly off, without any warning or error message before or after. This has occurred when using FSX in either of the two hard drive installations I have on the same computer. I have installed SP1 and SP2 and Acceleration on the main hard drive but not the other so it appears the problem may be just with FSX (or is it with hardware?). I have uninstalled FSX and all associated add-ons etc, defragged and started a new progressive installation, where I test-flew the sim and each add-on in its turn to see if there were any problems. It wasn't until I re-loaded FTX Blue and hot-fixes + Airports that the computer began to crash again (but remember I haven't got FTX or SP2 on the the other hard drive installation and it still crashes so it can't, in my mind be FTX). The crashes were occurring before I loaded FSX Acceleration/SP2. It doesn't seem t5o matter wher4e I have the sliders positioned either. The crashes don't happen all the time but when they do they are frequent and they occur anywhere from about five minutes to twenty or so miinutes (yet the other day I flew for over an hour down then QLD coast with real weather and it was fine, then flew for about 30 minutes in Austria and it was okay again. Went to America and it crashed, went to Oz and it crashed. I have run diagnostic tools and maintenance tools and a Spybot program but to no avail. Could it be something to do with my .Dat and .Ini files? Or something else? I have Norton Anti-virus but it crashed whether or not I have it turned on or off. I'm stumped and so is my computer technician (who built this computer about a year ago). My computer specs are: AMd Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core processor 4600+ 2.41 Ghz 4095 MB RAM Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit Operating System 24" AOC Optima LCD Monitor resolution 1920x1200x32 fixed Hardware attached: CH Yoke, CH Throttle Quadrant and Saitek Rudder Pedals, keyboard and optical mouse, speakers If anyone can assist me I would be grateful as I feel I'm about to go nuts. Regards, John G Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bendigoandy Posted April 6, 2008 Share Posted April 6, 2008 Nortons! On or Off ,just having it on your system is trouble...I have worked in Computer sales for over 12 Years and in that time I have seen Techies find that Nortons has caused more hassles than any other program! Some quotes from my Techies about Running Nortons : " Nortons Its a virus within itself" "A hell of a paranoid parent (ie allways checking up") "It's like walking a dog with out legs" also look at your firewall settings, test it with them off ? Cheers hope this helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bendigoandy Posted April 6, 2008 Share Posted April 6, 2008 And the video card you run ?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulldog Posted April 6, 2008 Share Posted April 6, 2008 My man. I had almost the same probs. It turned out to be either RAM or motherboard stuff ups. I changed the lot and all is well Bulldog Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jgruschow Posted April 6, 2008 Share Posted April 6, 2008 I have the same problem, but not as often as you. I am of the opinion that my froblem is caused by an overheating graphics card. I have overclocked my extreme x6800 cpu to 3.0 and have been watching temps very closely. When my vid card gets over 79*c a reboot in imannent. Can't work out why it gets so hot as it is not o'clocked at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markwlee Posted April 6, 2008 Share Posted April 6, 2008 Is the GPU fan not running fast enough, Jack? Chandy, I bought a better Power Supply when I was having those type of probs - even though the diagnostic Multimeter Device reckoned it was OK. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Webb Posted April 6, 2008 Share Posted April 6, 2008 I had the same problem - never "solved" it, but "solved" it by lowering my 800Mhz RAM to 667Mhz.... Cheers, Matt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chandy Posted April 6, 2008 Author Share Posted April 6, 2008 Thanks for all the quick replies. My nVidia Card (I knew I had missed something in my specs) is a 8800GTX. However, I think I have fixed the problem and it was more simple than I thought. I had previously been informed that one shouldn't run FSX at a different resolution than your LCD monitor (mine only has one resolution - 1900x1200x32) so I have been happily sailing along on that set-up until now (happy that is until the crashes started to occur). So ignoring that advice I simply dropped the FSX display res back to 1650x1050x32 and everything seems to be working fine. I have reloaded FTX and I think it looks great at that res and won't miss the slightly higher one at all. I still have quite a number of add-on to re-load yet but I think (touch wood) the problem is solved. So the message here is, for anyone else running high resolutions - try dropping them back, no matter what your LCD monitor specifies and see how you go. I could kick myself for not doing it earlier. Anybody want my Valiums? JG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxter Posted April 7, 2008 Share Posted April 7, 2008 Cheers and thanks for the tip, much appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chandy Posted April 7, 2008 Author Share Posted April 7, 2008 Back to the drawing board. After re-loading FSDiscover (it crashes to desktop now whereas it didn't before) and re-loading MegaSceneryX Southern California (it crashes the computer after only two to five minutes flying time) I have to reconsider what I said about lowering the in-game resolution. It's off to see the techies for this machine. John G Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Virtualwombat Posted April 7, 2008 Share Posted April 7, 2008 Major shut downs sounds like a power supply problem to me... Cheers, Noel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heiko Glatthorn Posted April 7, 2008 Share Posted April 7, 2008 Yeah, sure a hardware problem. PSU is a good bet as well as high temps or faulty RAM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akaluke Posted April 7, 2008 Share Posted April 7, 2008 A suggestion: Download Coretemp Prime95 memtest 3DMark06 Start with Prime95 and run each of the torture tests for 15 minutes. Watch the temps during each test. If it crashes during any of the tests, note which test and what the temps were when it crashed. If it passes all those, run memtest for a few hours. If it passes memtest, run 3dMARK06 for a few hours. Re-evaluate after you have your results. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
}SkOrPn--7 Posted April 7, 2008 Share Posted April 7, 2008 G'day, Startup and Recovery Big problem people have when experiencing crashes is that Windows XP by default automatically reboots your system whenever a crash occurs this doesn't give you enough time to look at the error message so to disable this functionality go to......... Start/Control Panel/System and under the "Advanced" tab select the "Settings" button in the "Startup and Recovery" section at the bottom. In the Startup and Recovery screen, under the System Failure section untick the "Automatic Restart" option. You will now see precisely what error message Windows generates when it has a major problem. Startup and Recovery Settings Click Start, right-click My Computer and click Properties\Advanced. Under the Startup and Recovery section, click the Settings button. For a system with a single operating system, select "Microsoft Windows XP [Home/Professional]" /fastdetect" in the list presented. If you only have one operating system or you don't want to select a different operating system each time you boot up untick the "Time to display list of Operating Systems" option. Click the Edit button and change the timeout= value in the second line to =0. When done save and exit the text editor and the changes will be made to your Boot.ini file in you base directory. Under the "System failure" section untick all three options for optimal performance and the "Write Debugging Information" option should be set to None. I know this is for XP but I don't have Vista to tell you the correct path but if you use this as a guide you might be able to figure it out to disable it in Vista. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chandy Posted April 23, 2008 Author Share Posted April 23, 2008 Due to frusrtration in applying all 'fixes' without resolve I reformatted the hard drive and began a new install of everything from scratch. Everything works fine now except that I still have this persistent splitting of visuals when panning left or right in VC mode (using the hat switch on my CH Yoke) and a shimmering of the scenery out the window (I have a 24" LCD monitor). I guess I can live with that but still it is annoying. Thanks for all the advice. Regards to all, John G Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chandy Posted May 12, 2008 Author Share Posted May 12, 2008 Well it turned out my computer crashes were the result of the Power Supply failing. The problem child was a 650w (had worked well foir a year but was the second one installed after a previous one failed) and I am now running on a borrowed 500w without any problems. Regards, John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dreamnugget Posted May 12, 2008 Share Posted May 12, 2008 Also as touched on above, as far as video cards overheating...mine was doing the same thing and shutting down, happened to notice too that my Graphics fan didnt seem as noisy..had a look at it and sure enough its only barely ticking over. I removed the card, removed the GPU fan (3 little screws through the fins)...pealed off the sticker on the back of the fan revealing where the fan is attached to the whole thing and dropped a drop of oil (machine), and the whole thing loosened right up...gave the fan a wipe over, put the sticker back on, re-installed it....and no problems since. Also on a side note, prior to checking the fan I started to get Nvidia pop-up saying the card wasnt getting enough power and to check the cables...what was happening is that the resistance on the 'tight' fan was draining power from the graphics card...this popup has not come back either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maurice_King Posted May 12, 2008 Share Posted May 12, 2008 I'd suggest another avenue is the fact that you should NOT be running SP1 SP2 and Accelleration togther, SP1 and SP2 is Cool SP1 and Accelleration is Cool All three NOT Cool random crashes and interactions with Many other addons. IMHO NEVER Over clock and NEVER underestimate the PSU if you calculate you need 500 Watts then buy a 650 or 700 Watt unit. Your problem sounds very PSU orientated to me based on your discription but there could well be other thing contributing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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