A long, sad story. In December I purchased an Asus M2N-E motherboard, an AMD 64 Dual Core Athlon Black CPU running at 3.3Ghz and 4Gb DDR2 RAM. The object was to try and run FSX with the sliders not fully, but close to the right hand settings. I spent most of January setting the whole thing up; various other problems, notably USB bandwidth with modem and webcam.Finally in a position to run FSX. Did so, ran for 5min perfectly. Frame rates locked at 32 and no stuttering or blurries et al. A slight problem with ATC chat (carrier wave only, just like I used to experience occasionally in real life as an Air Traffic Controller), but I could live with that. Then CTD, or even worse, the XP equivalent of the BSOD - "FSX has encountered a problem. Do you wish to inform Microsoft of this?"Have tried everything to resolve, updated all drivers, even bought a new graphics card (thought the chip on the old one was overheating). Now have a Sapphire (ATI 3800) which cured the problem for a couple of flights and then CTD again.Running out of ideas (and money). The Event Log shows the following:Faulting Application fsx.exe. version 10.0.61355.0. faulting module terrain.dll. version 10.0.61355.0. fault address 0x00018136.Any further suggestions gratefully received:-(

Sorry to hear that.It looks like a hardware issue. Did you try to benchmark your computer?Try to run OCCT for an hour and see if everything goes well and if you don't encounter any heat issues.http://www.ocbase.com/perestroika_en/An other question...Did you install FSX Service packs, Dx9 latest update, all XP updates?Don't give up :--)Cheers,

Thanks for that. I will visit the link and give it a try.I will check the DX9 update. I have automatic updaes set on Windows so I assumed they would update automatically.BTW. I posted the message last night and couldn't find it today. I ended up sending aonther this evening. No, you are not experiencing a deja-vue!Brian

DavidDownloaded the benchmark prog last night and, sure enough, as soon as the pcu gets stresed I get a PCU Too Hot warning. Why did I not think of that?Two more questions now though,Will the CPU be damaged by it having overheated (although I am obviously using it now)? Or is there a fail-safe temp sensor in it which cuts it out?Also, what is a good cooler to keep 3.2Ghz cool? I bought a new fan with the CPU and mobo (lots of fins and copper tubes), but when I fitted it it would not run (broken shaft). As I bought it in the States, I couldn't take it back.Thanks again for (perhaps) solving my problem.Brian

Hi Brian,Yes your CPU will be damaged if overheated.And yes there is a security feature in the BIOS but perhaps you have disabled it!It's not only a matter of good cooler but how the o/c is made.It seems you have o/c your PC without enough knowledge and care and that could be harmful.A bad o/c is worth than no o/c at all for FSX and for the safety of your componants. I am moving your thread to the hardware forum.Cheers,

DavidIn case you thought I was running thr CPU without a cooler at all, I was not. I am using the one I had on the old AMD 64 PCU (2Ghz) and am getting a reasonable temp with the PCU idling, according to the BIOS.I have not disabled anything in the BIOS except the Cool & Quiet feature.O/c, over-cooking, over-clocking?Brian

Post script to last week's plea.Bought a Hyper TX2 cooler this morning. Strapped it on to the CPU, ran the benchmarking prog and after 1 hour at 100% core 1 maxed out at 56deg C and core 2 at 60deg C.Will now try FSX. Fingers crossed.

Yeah it's gotta be the CPU cooler, hopefully that new one works betterOT- where did you work as an ATCer?I'm training in duluth, mn

>OT- where did you work as an ATCer?I was a failed RAF pilot (sinuses). ATC was as close as I could get to flying. Was based at Gutersloh in Germany and then at Midland Radar (of the biggest overhead in the world). All raw radar and weather clutter. No SSR. Ah, those were the days.

B***er!Same problem, FSX runs for 15min then CTD. I really thought I had cracked it with the cooler. Different error on the event log this time: Faulting application fsx.exe, version 10.0.60905.0, faulting module sim1.dll, version 10.0.60905.0, fault address 0x00044788.It used to be terrain,dll. Does that mean a new problem?No ideas left, apart from starting with all sliders to the left and increasing each one incrementaly to see where they are when the prog CTDs (CsTD?).BTW, I have tweaked nothing re the CPU. I am not sufficiently knowledgeable to attempt over-clocking the CPU, besides, 3.2Ghz ought to cope with FSX out of the box. I did, however, run ATI Overdrive on the new graphics card.Any further suggestions gratefully received.:-zhelp

I would take the ATI overdrive off and see what happens. Remove anything extra you have added short of a default load of FSX. Could be the ATI overdrive. Good Luck!

Success!Took off the ATI Overdrive and also checked what else had been left since the last reinstall. Found a backup PAI Traffic.BGL file in the scenery folder so deleted that as well. Fired up FSX and flew the default B747 from Heathrow to Singapore without a hitch. Ran ATI Overdrive again to check which was causing the problem and flew on to Sydney, also without a hitch.I have seen an AI aircraft thread elsewhere in this forum so I shall go there and see how I can migrate 40-odd Mb of accumulated PAI aircrft over to FSX (all I had done was copy the aircraft, airports and flightplans files into FSX and ran T-Tools to load them into FSX. Obviously too simple a method).Thanks for all your help.Brian:-)