I keep getting a complete system crash when I either select aircraft type, flight planner or Fly now. I get a rapid clicking noise followed by a reboot. I have deactivated the crash-auto reboot in the hope of getting an error code. I get nothing just a blank blue screen. I have tried to start up in safe mode and run the sim from there but it just says that FS( needs a component that is not there...presumeably the graphics card. On the odd ocassion that I manage to get it to run it seems to take ages between selecting an aircraft and anything happening and also the same with flight planner. I have tried a complete reinstall but still the same. I am also using PMDG's 747 as well. I have tried the default FS9 aircraft and the same thing happens. I have also tried to search the forum but most results relate to a crash to desktop.Any ideas? I am just a beginner/intermediate computer user.The system is:AMD 2700 CPU512Mb RamATI 9700 Raedeon All in wonder Graphics card.Many thanksSteve

Steve,That sounds nasty. Has your system done this with any other application, or does it just happen with FS9?I just went though a period of troubleshooting a number of issues on my system. Ultimately i found that i had some bad memory. That is probably something you should test. I used and recommend memtest86+, which is freely available from http://www.memtest.org/Did you build your own system, or is it a vendor-built system?It might take a few iterations of try this, try that before we can narrow in on the problem.john

It sounds like a hardware issue, possibly the graphics card not properly seated or drivers not installed properly. The "rapid clicking noise" could be a hard drive failing. I have received a blue screen of death (BSOD) on a less than 6 month old system and it turned out to be one of the hard drives beginning to fail. I did not heed the warnings and finally the system refused to boot up and I lost a lot of personal files. Have you checked out your system event viewer (Start>Administrative Tools>Event Viewer)(On your system you may have to go through the Control Panel)? Check for error messages and review each one. Sometimes they provide valuable clues and often give you the option to go onto the web and check for possible solutions to your particular error. Blue screens usually show these error messages when they occur but it is possible you'll just receive the BSOD. Hope this helps and good luck finding the problem.JimYoung

Thanks for the replies guys. The crash only occurs with FS9. But then again this is the most intense program that I have. I do have periods of very slow activity from time to time and I have noticed that the hard drive is really working hard at times and that FS( is very slow to change after selecting different options ie. A/C or airports. I know there is a lot to load but it does seem slow all the same. I do have a second hard drive installed that I use for back ups that I could try. The clicking noise is not from the hard drive but from the speakers. I am using onboard sound by the way.I will also have a look at the event viewer to see what is there.I will see also about the graphics card driver. ThanksSteve

Hello,You can try : http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Filemon.htmlThis product (free) traces all the files accesses (you can use the "filter" option to reduce the amount of information) it did help me to find several problems and solve them.Hope it helps.

Thankyou very much I will try that.CheersSteve

The BSOD and clicking is often heat related. An easy test is to remove the left side cover and stick an ordinary house fan in there. Then go fly to test. The fact that your system seems sluggish would warrant a check of the CPU cooler. Quite often dust and furballs pack in between the fins of the CPU cooler.Another easy troubleshooting technique on your system would be to disable the onboard sound in the motherborad's BIOS and then do some test flying.Good luck,Greg

Thanks very much. I have cleaned out the fans and fins. If there was going to be a crash I would have thought it would have been during the game and not before. It is only when I select any of the options I mentioned in my post that causes the crash. It does not happen during the game. To me if seems to be a driver conflict....either video or sound. I am not happy with my video card at the moment as I am getting a lot of artifacts on the screen during normal use...blurred icons etc. I see there is another ATI driver release that I will try first and if that fails then I will use my other card to trouble shoot. Disabling the onboard sound is a good idea. Will the sim run wiothout detecting sound?CheersSteve

I disabled the sound on the mobo and it now runs fine. I was poking around in device manager and found this under memory access. I notice that Nvidia nForce2 AGP host to PCI bridge appears 3 times. I am only an enthusiastic amatuer when it comes to computer hardware so is this any cause for concern?I have attached a screen shot.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/149841.jpg

How many video cards do you have installed? According to your attachment, you have an ATI Radeon 9200 series card installed (primary/secondary - OK) and then it references a NVIDIA nForce2 AGP Host to PCI Bridge several times. Yikes! Maybe you have a NVIDIA GPU motherboard? In any case, my video card is only referenced twice (primary/secondary) under PCI Bus (for different memory addresses). It's normal for devices to be listed several times as each device uses different memory addresses. Your system is trying to manage the memory efficiently.Sorry I can't help you more.JimYoung

Nope just the Radeon 9200. My 9700 All in Wonder Pro must be crapping out as it keeps displaying a sort of weave pattern on my LCD monitor from time to time and also seems to distort the ICONs on the desktop :(How would I disble that Nvidia nForce2 AGP Host to PCI bridge?Cheerssteve

"How would I disble that Nvidia nForce2 AGP Host to PCI bridge?"Right click it and select Properties, then select disable. I would not recommend it though as your Radeon 9700 is probably sitting in the AGP slot on your Motherboard. You CAN remove it though and then restart your computer. Your system will then reinstall it upon startup (if the device is actually there). Perhaps someone more knowledgeable than me can provide you further advice.Again, as I mentioned earlier, your video card may not be properly seated in its slot or you need to uninstall and reinstall your ATI video card drivers (latest version on ATI.com).You also did not mention looking at the Event Viewer and checking for any error messages (under Application or System) that are causing your crashes. The Event Viewer can provide valuable clues to a system problem. Goto Control Panel>Administrative Tools>EventViewer.Hope this helps some.Ciao,JimYoung