I am getting a system crash to black screen when I use FSX for about an hour in full screen mode. Seem to be getting good graphics, frame rates, prformance, then all of a sudden the screen goes black and the system locks up--need to turn off power to restart/reboot system. AMD processor with ATI Radeon HD 3800 series card. Doesn't do this with FS9. Add ons -- RAdar Contact, FSPassengers, but neither of these seem to make any difference to above problem occuring. Any suggestions appreciated.John

Is any part of the system overclocked? i.e CPU/Graphics Card/Memory? If so it may be overheating?

Is any part of the system overclocked? i.e CPU/Graphics Card/Memory? If so it may be overheating?

No overclocking. The only time I have experienced similar "black out" and lock up was when AVG running an automated virus scan....now using Avast and this no longer happens, except for this wih FSX.

I am getting a system crash to black screen when I use FSX for about an hour in full screen mode. Seem to be getting good graphics, frame rates, prformance, then all of a sudden the screen goes black and the system locks up--need to turn off power to restart/reboot system. AMD processor with ATI Radeon HD 3800 series card. Doesn't do this with FS9. Add ons -- RAdar Contact, FSPassengers, but neither of these seem to make any difference to above problem occuring. Any suggestions appreciated.John

If it's not overheating or overclocked, and the problem doesn't occur with FS9, then it's a memory issue and you need to apply the /3GB switch for XP OS's or the BCDEdit increaseuserva=(enter amount of memory) unless you have the 64 bit version of your OS installed. The memory issue does not apply to 64 bit OS's, just 32 bit. You can also try turning down your sliders in the FSX configuration and turn off things like traffic, autogen, and lower the water setting to the next to lowest setting and see if that fixes the problem. This problem is quite common and you need to tweak your system for the best performance. In case you haven't seen, here's a link to an excellent post on how to set up FSX and tuning it properly: http://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=29041.Best regards,Jim Young