CTD. But no reason given why.

[Guest loadman]

Hi folks.Got a new PC just for FSX and FS9. Installed FSX (but not FS9),downloaded and installed all the service packs together with new drivers for just about everything. Select FSX and set medium settings and aircraft and location ete etc, click on fly now and within 30 seconds the screen goes BLACK and the PC will not restart,I have to reboot it using the reboot switch. There are no messages at all about why the PC has crashed,the event manager shows nil results,unless I am missing something. There is still power going through the PC as the fans are working OK but everything else has stopped. I have tried all the things that I can think of but nothing seems to work. The longest that FSX ran was for 6 minutes but that was with all sliders to the left. The PC is INTEL Q6600 quad core 2.4 per core, NVidia 9500GT 1mb, memory is 4GB with a 650W PSU. I am beginning to suspect that the 650W PSU is not man enough for the job and when FSX runs together with 6 USB's plugged in and the settings are medium to high I think the PSU may just cut out. I don't know if this is the answer but am open to suggestions.John Brown.

[bobbyjack 61]

I think 650w is plenty. I run 430 with the rig below. Are you over-clocking anything? Seems like less of a crash and more of a driver issue. I don't think there are older drivers that work with your card. And then there are Vista problems(sounds like you have Vista). My screen used to go black but I could still hear everything. Tell us more about your set-up. Maybe for the heck of it, deleat your FSX cfg.Bob

[Guest loadman]

Hi Bob.Thanks for the reply,been away for a few days. I don't have Vista,just Win XP. PC not over clocked as it is brand new just out of the box.I have downloaded and installed just about every update you can think of.PC runs fine on normal use but as soon as FSX is fired up it blacks out after a few seconds. Screen goes black and I have to reboot manually. Fans are still running but no sound. The PC specs are: Q6600 Quad core, 4GB memory. NVidia 9500GT with 1mb mem,650W PSU,750HDD. 3 fans. Temperature never goes above 34C so it is not a thermal shutdown. The guy who made the PC is back at work Monday so I will give him a call. I will uninstall FSX and do a reinstall.Will delete FSX.cfg first just in case. It may be a faulty NVidia card,I may also revert to an earlier driver version to see if that works. I will also install FS9 and see if it shuts down that,if it does then I think it may be a software problem.John.

[bobbyjack 61]

I don't think FS9 stresses a system,especially like yours, anything like FSX. Not sure a reinstall is the answer. Too bad you can't try another card to check that. I don't have Enhancer any more, but I seem to remember there being some kind of system test in it. Not sure about that. I do remember that you can slow down or speed up your card clock speed. There has been some discussion in the hardware forum about the possibility of 1gb being too much vid memory. Hard to imagine.Bob

[Guest loadman]

Bob.Just had a thought, does my Graphics card need to be powered by the PSU? It is just plugged into the MoBo via the PCI E slot and draws its power from there. If it does, is there a socket of some sort on the Graphics card?

[bobbyjack 61]

No extra power hook-up as far as I can tell. While the computer on on check to see if the video card fan is running. If not It could be a bad card. Maybe reinstall video driver. That means, at minimum, delete the video device in device manager, restart, use of a driver cleaner would be nice, reinstall latested driver ( available from Nvidia).Bob

[Guest loadman]

Bob.Found the problem. I had them send me a new 700w PSU but the PC still went down. They then sent me an upgraded Nvidia 9600 GT with its own connection to the PSU and BINGO every thing seems to be normal. Looks like the MoBo was not giving enough power to the 9500 so the card was closing down. I did notice the 9500 fan was revolving at a low speed and perhaps this might also have been a cause. Thing look stable now. Thanks for your input.John.

[bobbyjack 61]

JohnI think you just had a bad card. The 9600 is a better card, anyway.Good luck.Bob