I am running Windows Vista 64 Home Premium SP2, with FSX Accelerated. I own all the PMDG FSX Aircraft except for the 747-800i, which I just purchased and installed, I would fly that for about 20 minutes, and then CRASH back to desktop. I said to myself alright, lets nip this thing in the bud early, so I uninstalled ALL my PMDG aircraft with there respective un-installers, as well as all the liveries. Then I restarted my pc to prepare for a fresh install,1. I installed the 747-400X and ran it in the sim, did a short test flight KLAX-KONT and was successful. So I closed FSX and continued on.2. I installed the MD-11X which installed fine with the prompt for the re-distributable etc. I also installed the 2 available updates to make the MD-11 Current. Once that was done, I launched FSX set up the same scenario KLAX-KONT and about 60% through the flight which was about 15 minutes, my mouse cursor showed the (O) for wait and kept circling, eventually the Fatal Error Message Came up again, and then the FSX is Restarting. I stopped everything, and searched the forums here, but didn't really see anything relevant so I made this post.Now Before I installed the 747-800 I COULD fly my MD-11 from KLAX to KONT without a CTD, and I thought un-installing all the PMDG Products then re-installing them would help.My plan was to install 747X // MD-11X // JS4100 // 747-800i But since my MD-11 is crashing now, I am putting those installs on hold so the search area for problems will be narrower I guess. Now I am open to any and all suggestions, I am not using DX10 Preview or Light Bloom, I am using a Nvidia 8800gtx with the latest drivers installed, but the Sim was working fine before the 747-800, so my brains says to me, that it can't be the graphics drivers or card can it?Here is my PC Specs Intel Core 2 Duo OC'ed to 4.0Ghz // 4GB Ram // 8800GTX Thanks again, and I apologize in advance for the lousy construction of this post, I was trouble shooting on my own for a few hours, before I came here for help, and typing this up at 5:30am when I'm falling asleep adds fuel to the fire you know what I mean? lol Angelo Cosma

Anyone have any ideas? I cant fly for more than 10 minutes right now with PMDG planes only.

My first thought was that maybe your OC'd system is push a little too far. However, I am a real noob when it comes to this subject. I think about OC on my system but then when I think about the non-game things I use it for I back off.Direct support from PMDG is only available via email. Make sure you get an automatic response.

Direct support from PMDG is only available via email. Make sure you get an automatic response.

Does this mean that the PMDG support forums doesn't provide support from PMDG? Should I always email PMDG instead of posting here?Ulf BjarkeProud owner of the 747, MD-11 and the BAe JS4100

There is one PMDG guy who "moderates" but he isn't on line all the time. Most support here is from other users that may have solved a problem or read about the solution, I'd guess there are a couple dozen who frequently show up here. This is a PMDG forum, but like I said, direct support is via email.Posting issues and solutions here helps everyone.

There is one PMDG guy who "moderates" but he isn't on line all the time. Most support here is from other users that may have solved a problem or read about the solution, I'd guess there are a couple dozen who frequently show up here. This is a PMDG forum, but like I said, direct support is via email.Posting issues and solutions here helps everyone.

So you are a user or PMDG staff or beta tester? If I want "real" support I should email PMDG instead of posting here in the "Suppport" forums?Edited: Sorry, forgot to post my full name: Ulf Bjarke

So you are a user or PMDG staff or beta tester? If I want "real" support I should email PMDG instead of posting here in the "Suppport" forums?Edited: Sorry, forgot to post my full name: Ulf Bjarke

Hi Ulf, Dan, amongst others in this forum are very helpful with most user issues and can shed light on some things that may be related to specific hardware/software and of course since he/they have a good memory and more often than not questions and concerns and even issues are normally posted here repeatedly and easy fixes at times are more easily found in this forum (Knowledge base). Ryan, Paul, Jason, Vin, Markus, Robert and others give support here often but Ryan is probably the main one that gives support in the forum from what I've seen, but again all are helpful and seem to be very active here.Glad you put your name in, because most forum moderators won't answer without it and even some users.As Dan stated "direct support is via email" but Paul answers a huge amount of emails a day and you should use both. Typically I would recommend emailing support and dropping a post here, then once your issue is resolved, report back here and update the fix to your dilemma to help feed more knowledge into the forums for future ref.I will update this post in a few minutes and see if I can help Angelo further investigate his specific issue (sorry but inspector is on the way to check out my permits on some house work).Edit:Angelo, Smart that you put off installs until you find the problem to this one. I think too many rush their insalls then have no clue which may have caused the "hiccup" in the system.One thing you mention that seems like it can give the most clues is where you state "my mouse cursor showed the (O) for wait and kept circling". This is common for Triplehead2go users to see but for others like yourself could show that there is excess CPU, memory activity that should be looked at. I would run in windowed mode so you can have task manager open on the Processes tab so when this happens you can look at the CPU usage and memory colums and see if anything is spiking (ie. 80% or higher). Another thing to look at is you event logs after a crash and see if anything is giving an error under Application or System. Sometimes these errors don't give much to go by, but then again, sometimes they are our only means to find a solution or the culprit to the problem.Some addons have their own logs also and can be checked, but having about 17 addons, there are only a small portion that have logs and the data that is written to these logs is minimal and doesn't lead to much. If you post your addons (any that you haven't mentioned that is) I might be able to tell you where to check.The problem here is most likely instability, and like Dan mentioned the first thing that comes to mind is an overclocked cpu (or even memory timing) quirk . CTD's come in many forms but an oc'd cpu has the most. Staturated bus being another (a system just can't keep up with the demand), and drivers of course are another, but more doubtful since most people check that first.You may also want to check to see if you have the latest C++ runtimes installed for your OS, as well as .net framework. I have seen a lot of CTD's related to both of these and just installing the latest may clear up some issues (if you're overwriting previous versions, then the repair option is the one to chose when installing). The event logs are normally pretty good at writing errors associated with these programs so again, they are the first place I'd look. Running in windowed mode with task manager 2nd.*When running in windowed mode, make sure to also run the sim at your monitors resolution. This in itself causes extra hardware/software stress that can also cause CTD's.Hope this helps,

Approx a year ago, I had a similar problem. There would be graphical anomolies somtimes or the MD-11 would just freeze mid-flight. It happend randomly until it became progressively worse and happend every flight (FSX freezing and crashing). I initially uninstalled the MD-11, and then re-installed it. Same problem right away. This time I completely removed FSX, acelleration, etc, did a fresh re-install of everything...the same exact problem. lots of CTD, freezing, etc. My final solution? format my harddrive, reinstall everything, including windows. My fingers are crossed and hopefully that never happens again. My computer stats are below with my signature, as u can see, I am overclocked, however it is a very stable overclock. Been stress tested and RAM tested, no errors. This is my absolute favorite FSX add-on. Try this: delete your FSX.cfg. when u do this, fsx builds a new .cfg file, maybe something went wron in your .cfg file

Approx a year ago, I had a similar problem. There would be graphical anomolies somtimes or the MD-11 would just freeze mid-flight. It happend randomly until it became progressively worse and happend every flight (FSX freezing and crashing). I initially uninstalled the MD-11, and then re-installed it. Same problem right away. This time I completely removed FSX, acelleration, etc, did a fresh re-install of everything...the same exact problem. lots of CTD, freezing, etc. My final solution? format my harddrive, reinstall everything, including windows. My fingers are crossed and hopefully that never happens again. My computer stats are below with my signature, as u can see, I am overclocked, however it is a very stable overclock. Been stress tested and RAM tested, no errors. This is my absolute favorite FSX add-on. Try this: delete your FSX.cfg. when u do this, fsx builds a new .cfg file, maybe something went wron in your .cfg file

Good advice David, You can also rebuild the fsx.cfg and all other main files (like control.xml) holding CTRL+Shift while starting FSX (Must keep the two keys pressed while it loads), this will also make FSX re-ask you to allow all of your trusted .dll's which is one way to have it reask.Another possibilty I wanted to throw out there, just because I just got home a little while ago from my friends house and even though he has computer certifications far above my grasp and knowledge I was able to find his issue pretty fast. He's a first person shooter gamer (as am I), and his performance according to him is his comp has degraded in performance by at least half. I built his system and the specs are the same as mine without the overclock on my own. Anywho, shortly after I got there I noticed his comp was stashed under his desk, pushed far into the corner with little ventilation and you could literally feel the heat, I'd say about a 10 degree difference than room temp. I went into his bios and checked the hardware monitor and his cpu was almost 90c hahaha. The case I built this comp in is the best I know, with great ventilation and fans all working the correct way (also PSU on the bottom, major plus). Anywho, I took off his side panel and the heat sink was coveredddddd in soot. So bad I had to remove the heatsink/fan completely and do a thorough cleaning of it (no canned air). Well let's just say, my buddy now owes me a few brews and his comp is running back at a nice cool 42c.This made me think of how many people this effects that may not know how much heat a blanket of dust can create. Canned air has gotten pretty stupidly overpriced imo, but in his case you didn't even need it, it was almost handfuls (ok pinches worth). He was grateful but still won't let me OC his system, haha, and I don't think I'd want to seeing how well his attention to detail is :(

Hi Ulf, Dan, amongst others in this forum are very helpful with most user issues and can shed light on some things that may be related to specific hardware/software and of course since he/they have a good memory and more often than not questions and concerns and even issues are normally posted here repeatedly and easy fixes at times are more easily found in this forum (Knowledge base). Ryan, Paul, Jason, Vin, Markus, Robert and others give support here often but Ryan is probably the main one that gives support in the forum from what I've seen, but again all are helpful and seem to be very active here.Glad you put your name in, because most forum moderators won't answer without it and even some users.As Dan stated "direct support is via email" but Paul answers a huge amount of emails a day and you should use both. Typically I would recommend emailing support and dropping a post here, then once your issue is resolved, report back here and update the fix to your dilemma to help feed more knowledge into the forums for future ref.I will update this post in a few minutes and see if I can help Angelo further investigate his specific issue (sorry but inspector is on the way to check out my permits on some house work).

Thanks for your answer! I assume that you represent PMDG on this matter. So if I have an issue I should post in the PMDG forums and also send a support email to PMDG.Thanks!

Thanks for your answer! I assume that you represent PMDG on this matter. So if I have an issue I should post in the PMDG forums and also send a support email to PMDG.Thanks!

Hello,I had fatal errors as well for awhile. I then did some checking in my event viewer and looked at the errors. In my case it was windows defender that was killing FSX. Windows defender does this little mini scan of running programs and if FSX is running it will cause a fatal error and then restart. Once I shut off windows defender all has been fine ever sense. There is information on the web about how to shut off windows defender. I use vista 64 fyi. Hope this helps you.Guthrie Zuehlke

As Dan from PMDG explained. You have to both post here and then also email PMDG to get support.Ulf Bjarke

Try my fix posted here:http://forums1.avsim.net/index.php?showtopic=276108I think the main issue is that FSX is a 32 bit program so the two tweaks I've posted seem to fix the issue.