random freeze-ups in FS9

[Guest]

I have been experiencing random freeze-ups while flying with FS9. Sometimes it occurs within minutes of starting a flight (mostly with add-on aircraft), sometimes after 30 minutes (generally with default planes), sometimes not at all. When it happens, it's the same: all video stops, the mouse freezes, the sound becomes a steady repetative stutter. Ctrl-Alt-Del does not work when in full-screen mode and I must push reset.I've removed all the modules I've added, one-by-one but the freezes did not go away. I deactivated the sound card, thinking it might be a sound driver problem, but the freeze-ups remained.I just tested the CPU, RAM and video memory and everything passed.System:Pentium 4 1.6A o/c'ed to 2.4 GHz512 MB RAMWinXP ProDirectX 9.0BRadeon 9600 Pro (3.6 Catalyst Drivers)Soundblaster Live (latest Creative drivers)Is there anyway to find out what is causing these freeze-ups? I had no problems running FS2002.Doug

[Guest OneTinSoldier]

Hi,Sorry to say, but I recommend to back out the overclocking to see if that's the problem. If a person is overclocking and having problems, the first thing recommended to stop doing is overcloking the system.JimEDIT: I just noticed that your are overclocking a 1.6 GHz CPU by a full 1 GHz!! My God man, that is most certainly your problem! Unless perhaps you're using liquid nitrogen to cool the system. :-lol

[Guest rogue1]

Same problem for me. Freezing solid, only the reset button will fix it. No problems with FS2002. Tried a clean install of FS9. No changes to the default full install and it still locks up. System:AMD Athlon 1900+ not o/c'ed512mb RAMWinXP ProDirectx 9.0A and 9.0B (same problem with both)Radeon 8500 (not the latest drivers, but the one before that)Soundblaster Gamer Live (Windows default drivers and latest Creative drivers)I've tried setting the DirectSound lower to no avail, made sure that DirectX was installed correctly, etc. etc.Only thing I can think of now is the CPU may overheating (haven't had that problem with other software). But FS2002 and RealityXP Garmin's push the CPU just as hard and no freezes. Going to go back to my big Delta fan and see if that makes a difference (well it will, as that sucker sounds like a vacumm cleaner).Only other thing I've noticed is that it occurs less often if I run at 1024x768x32 versus 1280x1024x32. Go figure. It is also not specific to a certain aircraft, I've had it lock up with the C172 within 2-3 minutes, and then allow me to fly from Seattle (KSEA) to Portland (KPDX) in the same aircraft later the same day with no problems. I was working on converting my FS2002 767 panel for the newly released 767's into FS2004 and after making some changes and reloading the Delta 767 with cockpit view I switched to external view and wham - locked up solid.Will post my results. And no, I'm not going to do a clean O/S install. That is not the problem when only one piece of software causes the symptoms. Jim

[Guest]

I had the same problem for two weeks. I read all the posts, tried all the fixes and nothing worked. I reinstalled and did not use the no-cd crack on the reinstallation and it has not crashed since. I am running XP Pro on an overclocked P4, with 512mb of ram and a Radeon 8500. It runs stable, fast and cool. Yhe only time in the past year and a half that this computer has crashed is running FS9 and that crashed it everytime. It could take as little as five minutes or as long as a half hour. I have run FS 2002, GP4, IL2 FB, CFS2 and CFS3 with not a single problem. I wonder if the copy protection incorporated in this sim is checking for cd4 periodically while the sim is running and that explains the random crashes, and maybe also the slowdowns. Windows XPPro has been so bulletproof on this system, I was amazed to see a MS game hard crash it. After all, it is a MS OS, with Direct X9, a MS api, and a MS sim program and many people are experiencing similar lockups. I have a suspicion that this is copy protection with a vengeance.

[Guest OneTinSoldier]

Well I use the NOCD exe and fly for hours on end with nary a problem at all.Jim

[Guest Fishu]

Some advices...Run the game without overclock and report back - FS9 is using hardware very extensively and isn't very prone to errors(1.7ghz CPU overclocked by 800mhz is way too much to convince me of its all around stability.. sure it might work in most things just fine)Make sure you have the latest direct-x version (9.0b)Try to uninstall soundcard and graphics card drivers (read: uninstall) and then install the latest drivers again.Back when I had the windows 98, I had some weird lockup problems and I spent some time trying to fix it but to no avail, until I slammed in 3 months old registry backup and it began working smoothly!Might be something wrong in the registry as well that I don't know about in detail.(making registry backups then and now is a good thing....)

[Guest rogue1]

Don't use the crack, don't want to know where to get the crack. Just a clean install with the #4 cd in my jukebox. I also have not had a piece of software do to XP Pro what this thing does. Usually, XP notices and let's me terminate the offending software. But this is a hard lock-up, no keyboard, no mouse, just sound (which leads me to believe it is sound related).Jim

[Guest rogue1]

Gents, I tried the autogen/framerate solution outlined in this thread:http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...id=140874&page=Had my longest session without a lockup. May be a fix, may not. I'm not sold yet, but it looks promising.Jim

[Guest The Ancient Brit]

Gentlemen,Lockups, freezes and desktops crashes (if you are lucky otherwise a reboot) all seems to be taking us back to the days of F2000. I think we are in danger here of arguing the case of one size fits all. I solved the FS2000 problem by doubling the size of my memory.With FS2004 it was screen freezes which only a reboot would solve. A flight that never reached the rotation point would fly for an hour or so on the next attempt and vice versa. On installing the Nvidia 4.5.2.3 drivers for my Geforce Ti 4600 128mb card, my problem was solved.In my case the NoCd crack was not responsible. It was emailed to me by a friend in the US a fortnight before the game became available in the UK and is running without a hitch. Once I upgraded the graphics card drivers, end of problem. I have no idea if the drivers are the latest issue and until they cease to work, I have no intention of fixing what isn

[Guest daveg4otu]

After similar experiences with lockups etc when I first went from FS2000 to FS2k2(all now long since cured) ,I recommend that you look carefully at your CPU temps. Just as FS2k2 was more demanding than FS2000,so FS9 demands more of your system than FS2k2.I recommend installing Motherboard Monitor which can be downloaded free here---http://mbm.livewiredev.com/This works with almost all motherboards and will monitor your CPU and system temps,voltages etc.It can be set up to produce a text log which can then be read in the event of a system crash etc so you can see what exactly was going on at the precise moment things went wrong.The vastly overclocked system that started this thread is a good example- overclocking pushes temps up,running FS9 is demanding - combine the two and problems have a very good chance of happening.Dave

[Hamilton_ 45]

Hi Doug,I had this problem a month ago,in my case the culprit was video drivers,like you,I thought it was a sound card issue but it wasn

[Guest Dean]

For what it is worth, I had the same random lockup problem in FS9 as well as some stuttering in certain areas and enabling AGP Fast Writes and setting the AGP aperature to 128 fixed both.

[Guest rogue1]

Ya know, when I run FS2002 my CPU is pegged at 100% based on the Windows performance monitor, when I run FS2004 my CPU is pegged at 100% using the same tool. I'd like someone to explain to me how my CPU would run any hotter using FS2004 over FS2002 based on this observation. :-) Oh, and I do have the AMD system monitor tool installed and unfortunately, when the system freezes there is no way to get to the tool to check the temps. And it is pretty hard trying to fly with its window open, kind of makes it hard to monitor. I've noticed that if I just open the sim and let it sit there without doing anything, it won't freeze, it is when you try to fly that it freezes which is why I believe the default.xml may be the culprit in my situation.My system isn't overclocked and is running a cooling system better than the base AMD recommended cooling system. My CPU temps always remain within the AMD recommended ranges. I'm with the Ancient Brit here. One solution will not fit all. My system is not setup like anyone elses, but what fixes my problem may help point someone else in the right direction.I appreciate all of the assistance everyone is providing, hopefully this can be resolved and we can all enjoy the new sim. Jim

[Guest daveg4otu]

Rogue1--Motherboard monitor will do what your AMD hardware monitor won't.IE: it will run in the systray with a visible readout of the temps in the toolbar,and it will produce the text log which you can read after the lockup/freeze event and maybe get some idea of what is happening.The reason that maybe FS2004 may cause higher temps than FS2002 is that it is a more demanding application and will ask more off your CPU,GPU,etc.I'm not saying that heat is the cause of your problems,only that it should be investigated as a possible cause.As other posts have said - it could well be down to other things.Good LuckDave

[Guest Rafael Cervera]

I had similar problem recently with add on aircraft. Everything else worked fine, including main apps such as Autocad and Photoshop.So ...I tried sliders and settings in a lot of combos.I upgraded my video card.I added a sound card. I reformated and reinstalled only windows and FS 2K2.I cursed Bill Gates and any others who qualified (most living civilazation).But no good. same problem. MSFS froze when I choose plane from menu. But only for that aircraft. everything else worked great! whaz up with this?Then I tried memory settings. went from 266 down to 200 mhz. ALLELUYA!!! everything works fineThen tried RAM sticks individually at 266 mhz. Yup. one stick of RAM does not work at 266 mhz. The other one yes. flies real good. so now I only have 512 megs of RAM @ 266 untill I buy another compatible stick for 1 gig. Hope this solves your problem.