Constant Freezes and system Crashes MD11/FSX

[BobP 56]

Norman, we don't know if the originator of this thread is having CTDs or lockups, we don't know if the saved states from previous release were deleted. Thanks for trying to validate the problem but first we need to identify the problem.

Hi,I get a hard crash requiring a power down of my computer. I load the plane from the 'Free Flight' menu as opposed to a saved flight. I purchased the MD11 for FSX after the second update. So I did not have any saved flights from a previous version. It rarely happens in FS9, but frequently in FSX. Thanks.Bob..

[falcon999 24]

There are many resources in this forum that are happy and enthusiastic to assist folks in troubleshooting issues with PMDG products. I would humbly suggest that if folks are looking here for help, then posting negative flaming comments is not the way to get it. B) I have been "Flight simming" for more years than I am comfortable to admit. Maybe a few thoughts can help this discussion. FS, running on a PC, is an "Open" systems platform. Good news: the technology architecture provides a large breadth of flexibility for consumers to "customize" software and hardware purchases around the specific experiences they are looking for. The platform provides a significant breadth of financial investment from the inexpensive base desktop all the way up to the some of the incredible home built cockpits. Bad news: The "Open" platform enables hundreds and maybe even thousands of different combinations of add-ons, drivers, operating systems patches, PC hardware, add-on hardware, etc. Each added component has the potential of destabilizing the entire system when combined with the other components already on the system. Combine the "Open" platform with the highly "tweakable" FS platform and troubleshooting and testing really become interesting. :( I am an advocate that software should always go through a thorough testing cycle. I humbly suggest that if we want the flexibility that an "open" architecture and a powerful/flexible FS engine bring, then as consumers we are going to share some of the risk of "boldly" going into combinations that no one has gone before. :( Over the years I have read and experienced many different troubleshooting procedures. IMHO, the best is to start with things simple. Base FS, base hardware (no OC), up to date drivers and up to date OS patches. This can be frustrating to many folks because up until the point they installed a new product everything could be fine and then wham, things get unstable. It is easy to point the accusation finger at the last product installed and sometimes it is. But in the years I have been doing this, there is one constant message I have experienced from the well respected vendors including PMDG. While no product is perfect and the product could have a significant issue, the vast majority of issues arise from problems with other software and hardware beyond the vendor's specific product. Sometimes it is a specific combination of products that destabilizes a PC or FS (or both) and no one encountered the problem up until the new release. UT comes to mind and the infamous OOM issues that can arise when combinations of heavy add-ons and UT are installed (or vice versa). So while going back to base install may be time consuming and frustrating, it's really the best way to try to figure what is going on with your specific combination. Finally, encountering problems is a very frustrating experience. Posting flaming comments only spreads the frustration and negativity to others. It's hard enough to try to help folks out using such an imperfect communications venue as a forum to troubleshoot complex technology problems. Flaming posts only make it that much harder to help. I have experienced hundreds (and maybe close to a thousand) hours running the MD11 with combinations of FS9, FSX, XP SP2, XP SP3, Vista 64, AS, ASA, UT, GE, CH Yoke, CH Pedals, etc. The released versions of the MD11 have been very stable for me and the vast majority of folks that have purchased the product. SO THERE IS HOPE! For me, recently installing Vista 64 with 6GB of ram has provided the most stable platform I have experienced for both FS9 and FSX. Now I have a few other tricks I use to promote stability, but I can save that for another post. :( This support forum is a great resource and there are many folks here to help. Hang in there and I am sure we can figure it out together. :(PS: e-Mailing PMDG support is extremely helpful as well!

[BobP 56]

I haven't flamed anyone. I'm also done wasting my personal flying time troubleshooting. I either have a bad motherboard, chip-set combination or just plain stinking bad luck. I have tried a replacement graphics card, upgraded to 64bit vista, added 4 gig of memory for a total of 8 gigs. I have chased every idea people have suggested from audio drivers to motherboard to tweaking to seeking the help of a practicing witch. FSX continues to teach me to accept less relative to stability and performance. The last straw was 30 minutes ago as I descended into KSEA (FSX) and the video broke up into vertical lines on the MFD's/PFD's followed by a complete hard lock up. I quit. I'll try to see if I can transfer the license and recover a portion of the cost. I'm not alone. I envy all six simmers who have never had a system crash with FSX. Thanks everyone for your suggestions.Bob...

[Guest jaskanFactor]

I haven't flamed anyone. I'm also done wasting my personal flying time troubleshooting. I either have a bad motherboard, chip-set combination or just plain stinking bad luck. I have tried a replacement graphics card, upgraded to 64bit vista, added 4 gig of memory for a total of 8 gigs. I have chased every idea people have suggested from audio drivers to motherboard to tweaking to seeking the help of a practicing witch. FSX continues to teach me to accept less relative to stability and performance. The last straw was 30 minutes ago as I descended into KSEA (FSX) and the video broke up into vertical lines on the MFD's/PFD's followed by a complete hard lock up. I quit. I'll try to see if I can transfer the license and recover a portion of the cost. I'm not alone. I envy all six simmers who have never had a system crash with FSX. Thanks everyone for your suggestions.Bob...

Hi BobPMDG md11 and 747 stability is crap on my system, but somethings can help to increase this poor stability1 - use dx9 not 102 - turn light bllom off3 - reduce your fsx sliders to the left a bit more.4 - reinstalling sp1 and sp2 helped some. But you need to start a flight in fsx after unstalling sp2, after reinstall of sp1, after renistall of sp2.5 - reducing my fsx bufferpools from 400 000 000 to 250 000 000 seemed to help also.All other addon i have worked perfectly before and after making the chnages above, but they only improved pmdg products stability on my system. What i did, did not completely fix the pmdg issues.Turn your sliders down Bob, 80% of the time fsx crashes are due to overtaxed system, and pmdg taxes system more than any other addon. In part cause i think there is bug in pmdg code that causes it to corrupt fsx memory, and this memory corruption is more likelly to happen if your graphic settings are high.ASLO BOB there is a button in md11 vc just behind the pilots head in overhead area, this disables some overhead panel detail. Its supposed to help increase fps, and stability.As for PMDG, nice aircraft, but as a software engineer, i am sure they got the cleaners to test this software, not thier developers. Well tested systems dont behave like for such a large set of users.JaskanVista64 - gtx285 - i7920 @ 3.8ghz

[Guest futureknight31]

I have also started experiencing FSX crashes with my MD-11. Very disappointing to be on a 4 hour trip cross country and crash out. Forget my exact specs...it's a dell xps 670 quad core. I haven't had problems before. Now windows is saying I'm out of memory. Not sure how the heck that is when I've never had issues before.Anyway, just indicating someone else is having crash issues these days.sincerely,Chris Romaniello

[Guest jaskanFactor]

Just tried latest Nvidia driver 182.50 for gtx 200 series , but it did not help with this problem. Probably even made it worse. So might roll back.But since no other aircraft, both defualt and payware are not having this problem, it suggests its not a gpu driver issue.Never the less, its about time PMDG start paying attention to the many of us who have paid high money for thier stuff that is not working.For me i am having these issues with both pmdg 747 and MD11.

[dusty_sourdough 8]

Hello.I have been away for a little bit. I have uninstalled, reinstalled, updated and thought I was finally in the clear...until now.I was at PANC doing touch ad goes. Well the "goes" part went OK. I took off and was coming in for short final and...freeze. Unlike before I had no message.I am so frustrated.

[MrSpeaker 121]

This might be off the wall but!!! I was exp a lot of lockups and crashes (I use Vista 64) I would get no message as to why my OS crashed and put it off as bad luck, however after a lockup or crash I would check my event viewer, everytime there was an error message with Windows Defender or Windows Automatic updates the error would occur at approx the same time as the crash or lockup, sense then I have disabled both defender and Auto updates and knock on wood have not had a crash or lockup. I still run these programs but I do then manually on my own time not having them do something in the background when Im flying.

[dusty_sourdough 8]

OK Ian,I am using Vista 32 bit Home premium. I will try what you said. I had defender disabled but not updates. I had a successful takeoff and landing from PANC before trying with your suggestion. I hope that the freezing will stop.Thank you for your response.

[MrSpeaker 121]

OK Ian,I am using Vista 32 bit Home premium. I will try what you said. I had defender disabled but not updates. I had a successful takeoff and landing from PANC before trying with your suggestion. I hope that the freezing will stop.Thank you for your response.

Ya next time this happens make note of the time, and check out the event viewer and see what happened at that time if anything, it could be something different all together, with defender I went into the services and disabled it from there, I originally shut it off via the control panel, but saw that it was still trying to update its definitions in the background who knows but something must be going on, good luck.