PMDG 737 Causing major problem

[Guest jasonwinn]

Hello everyone,This is going to take a while so settle down...Before I bought the PMDG 737, I was having no problems with FS2k4 crashing, I was pretty proud of how stable I had my machine, my machine is this:AMD XP 2700+1 Gig Corsair XMS 2700Radeon 970080 GB Maxtor 7200 RPM Hard-driveI read several reviews of the PMDG, and it looked like a winner. I bought it and have enjoyed it very much! It is by far one of my favorite aircraft to fly that I own on fs2k4. I have been very happy with the patches liveries and everything about PMDG.After I installed it, I starting getting problems after I flew a while. What happens is this;After flying a while, or doing a flight and using the computer a bit, my top menu bar (I run in windowed mode), will disappear to the last 2 bars and show "PMDG HELP" If I am correct. After that, all functions seem to not work anymore.There is also another effect is this problem, sometimes, instead of the top menu only showing the last top items (PMDG and HELP), it will completley disappear, and the bottom area (about the same size of the menu bar, just on the bottom of the window) will become garbled with weird colors.II try and click the X to close FS2k4, it clicks, but nothing happens, it does not close. Only after will it close, if I close something else, Like SBHost, Serv info or any program for that matter. Keep In mind, this only happens after doing several flights or making a long haul. It also seems to occur faster if I use FSNav, or take up more resources, so I was wondering if I was having a memory leak of some kind. So I increased my page file to 1.5 gigs on Windows 2000, and I ended up with 2.5 gigs of total memory, so I think i might have ruled that out.At first I thought that it could be a virus or something else, so I lived with it for a while. Finally, I completley uninstalled FS2k4 2 days ago, and made sure there was nothing left in the folder. I reinstalled it, and then flew it default for a while, and the problem did not occur. So I re-installed one aircraft, the Captain Sim 727, and flew for a total of 8 hours, and did not get the problem one single time. So today, I thought I was out of the ballpark, and that it must have been some freeware aircraft a long time ago that was causing the problem, and I reinstalled the PMDG 737. I did too flights, the KSMF-KLAX and KLAX-KPHX. Pretty short flights, only around 3-4 hours total. After arriving at phoenix, I got the same exact problem again. There was no FSNAV running, no nothing, and I had restarted the whole computer so it was fresh, and the problem happened. I figured with these 3 things that the PMDG 737 was to blame:1) the problem starting when I installed the 7372) The problem only showing 2 menu items, PMDG being one of them.3) And it coming back again when I reinstalled the 737.I am hoping that I will not have to uninstall this aircraft, hopefully someone can help me.Thakn you!Jason Winn

[lefteris 70]

Jason-this looks entirely like a video-card driver problem.Are you sure you have updated your machine with the latest Catalyst drivers?Cheers,

[Guest jasonwinn]

Thanks for the quick reply!I have tried 3.9 and 3.8, but I will give 4.1 a tryUpdate: just got it installed, and I am loading up FS and gonna give it a try. Ya know that the biggest thing that sucks about trouble shooting it? It takes a long time to find out before you think it is fixed or not lol, hours.While I wait and tinker with the new video cards to see if they fix it, would there be anything else you could think of? Anyone else have this problem?

[Guest jasonwinn]

Well after spending a good amount of time with it, I got the problem, and I was using the latest ATI 4.1 drivers.Any other options?Here is a look at one of the ways it happens, this is the one i described where the top menu disappears, and you get this weird colored thing at the bottom:http://www.flightsimnetwork.com/dcforum/Us...72b3a0e177e.jpg

[batchelork 0]

JasonI don't know what you have got running in the background but there are several things in your System Tray. They will probably be grabbing memory. If you don't need them for FS unload them and see if that helps.

[Guest jasonwinn]

I gave that a shot but didnt seem to help. I have 1 gig of ram available, and even with FS running, I had around 500 MB available, not including virtual page file.

[lefteris 70]

Jason-can I see your FS menu bar before the problem appears?Are you POSITIVE you're not running any other add-ons?Cheers,

[Guest Josve]

That weird thing on the bottom is defenately a videocard problem!I had that all the time with my ATI card......Johnny"I'LL BE BACK"[div align=center]http://www.avsim.com/hangar/fly/josve/zone.jpg ][/div

[Guest jasonwinn]

Here is what it looks like before the problem occurs:http://www.flightsimnetwork.com/dcforum/Us...9b949df7f67.jpgYes the only other add-ons are Captain Sim 727 and FSUIPC. But I ran it for 3 days with only the Captain Sim 727 and it didnt occur once. It seem to start when I installed the 737 in December, and only came back when I reinstalled the other day.Johnny~ How did you fix it?

[Guest Josve]

I changed my videocard to a Gforce card :)Wasn't that a handy solution?BTW I think I remember someting faar back in the teflon layer....There might also have something to do with DirectX.I'm not sure about this!!Johnny"I'LL BE BACK"[div align=center]http://www.avsim.com/hangar/fly/josve/zone.jpg ][/div

[Guest jasonwinn]

Well I uninstalled the 737 yesterday, and flew till around 11 o clock that night. And then I fly from around 1-9 today, testing, and I did not get the problem one single time. I was testing with the Captaim Sim 727, which is as much as a ram hog as the 737, if not more. I am still convinced that this is a problem occuring with the PMDG 737, as I only get it with it installed.

[Guest jasonwinn]

bump,Its still uninstalled and im going through with drawls lol

[Guest Ken_Salter]

I noticed from your screen shot that you are running Norton Antivirus and some other programs. Have you tried killing them before running FS?

[Guest B742FAN]

Try disabling fast writes in the bios. It has been known to cause wierd bugs like that. Just a thought.._Josh

[Guest jasonwinn]

I turned off Fast-Writes but I wasnt help to test the the outcome, because now after a few minutes, my A/P Disconnects.Argh im really not having good luck with the plane. More trouble then good.