random freeze-ups in FS9

[Guest]

Ok, I'm back. (I started the thread)At several people's suggestion, I reduced the overclocking by 50%, ran motherboard monitor, cranked up FS9 and flew Dreamfleet's Cessna 310. Everything went well (no lockups) for about 10 minutes. I clicked on an icon that brings up a subpanel, then clicked again to close it. Bang, instant freeze-up, non-stop broken sound, had to ctrl-alt-del. Motherboard monitor showed nothing strange. CPU was running at a constant 50 deg C (P4 1.6A). I had upgraded to the newest Radeon drivers.I have run memory checks and my RAM is fine. Something about FS9 is definitely broke, though.BTW, many people overclock the Pentium 4 1.6A in ASUS motherboards to 2.4 GH. I've run all kinds of burn-in tests, have run graphics-intensive games and benchmark tests and have never had a lock-up in the one year I've been running this system, until FS9, that is.Doug

[Hamilton_ 45]

Hi DougI answered your post a time ago, guess what ,after installing new textures my freeze-up back again :-(I was running for most than 3 weeks without any problems (after complete format and drivers),I guess you

[JayDub 0]

Doug, Had the same problems that drove me nearly crazy for months. Had the screen freezes and reboots in FS2002 and they carried over to FS2004......... Did everything I could thing of including numerous reformatting of the hard drives and reinstalls of Windows XP. This is what finally solved the problem completely for me. In CMOS setup I was using the "Optimum Setup" I changed this to "Fail Safe Setup" two weeks ago and have not seen a freeze or reboot since. I have not noticed any loss of performance. This may only be a solution for my MOBO configuration, but after months of frustration I am now very happy with my system and the way FS2004 runs on it.....Hope it works for you. JayDubLian-Li Aluminum Case 400W Power SupplyAMD ATHLON XP 2400+Gigabyte GA-7VAX VIA KT400 Dynatron CPU CoolerWindows XP Home Edition /Windows ME Dual Boot512MB Corsair DDR 2400Maxtor 40GB 7200 Maxtor 30GB SlaveSony 16x DVD / 40x CD-ROMPlextor 16x10x40 CD-RWCreative Audigy XGamer 5.1MSI GeForce 3 TI200 Pro - 44.03 DriversViewSonic19 Inch Flat Screen ViewSonic ViewMate Office KeyboardCreative V.92 PCI ModemSaitek X36F/X35T Flight Control System

[Guest rogue1]

Well, I'll try it then. Although, I haven't seen a freeze since applying the default.xml fix.Need to do some long flights and such.Oh, yeah: ..-. -... --- ---.. ....- --- - ..- -.. . -.- -.. --... -- -.. .-. -.-Jim

[Guest]

I have exactly the same problem as Doug. And my FS 2002 never caused any such problem.Here's my system:Pentium 4 2.6 GHz (no overclocking)512 MB RAMWinXP ProDirectX 9.0BNvidia Geforce 4 Ti 4200 64Sound Blaster LiveI tried EVERYTHING but with no success... My first guess was that cause of the problem was the video card. Then I thought it was something with my motherboard. After thinking it over I came, however, to another conclusion:the cause of these strange problems is the Sound Blaster Live. Doug, Jim (rogue1) and I - we have different systems but we all have SB Live. And always when the game crashes strange stuttering sound can be heard. I remember on my old computer (running Fs 2002), when I had problems with my previous sound card acceleration the same sound was always heard when FS crashed.Unfortunately this problem is a bit different than the one I had in the past - it cannot be solved just by updating sound card drivers or turning down sound acceleration in dxdiag...Maybe we should contact Creative Labs and ask them for a solution?Please, everyone with SB Live - please post here and tell us if you are having similar trouble.Jan

[Guest RichD]

Running Sb LIve 5.1 and no lock ups here. Do you have the latest drivers and the patch loaded for the SB Live? Also check your IRQ's and make sure your sound card is not sharing a IRQ with the video card. Richard

[Guest]

Hello Richard,Thank you so much for responding. The drivers are up to date, but actually video and sound cards do share the same IRQ(16). Unfortunately, I don't know how to change it - 'auto settings' checkbox in cards' properties in device manager is checked and greyed out... Can I ask you to help me once again?Best wishes,Jan

[Guest]

Jan,As a matter of fact, I had the same IRQ-sharing situation with my Soundblaster and Video card. The only way I was able to change the Soundblaster's IRQ was to move the card to a different PCI slot. The IRQs are now different. I will be testing out this new configuration tonight to see if it made a difference.Doug

[Guest RichD]

There are several ways to change the IRQ but the quickest way would be to move the card. Make sure it is not in the slot next to the AGP slot. I have mine in the last slot. Hope this helps.Richard

[Guest mdavis]

This is a common problem with especially Dell computers where they always seem to put the audio card adjacent to the AGP (PCI) slot used by the video card. Always make sure there is at least one empty slot next to your video card. As mentioned, moving the audio card to another PCI slot will force a change of IRQ's and "usually" will fix the problem.MDavis

[Guest]

Hi all! I am the one who started this thread. After moving the soundcard and thus allowing the computer to assign an IRQ different from that assigned to my AGP video card, I did not have any freezes on my last flight. I hope that was the answer to my problems. Thanks to all who offered your suggestions.Doug

[Guest Squitters]

Hi,Glad your snag is fixed, had the same problem with hard lock , onlyreset would do. Found my snag to be 'video bios shadow' in my biosto be the problem, unchecked it and never had a lock-up since, maybethis will help someone :-)Steve

[Guest]

At last!I changed IRQ and I think that those crashes are finally gone. During my last two flights everything was ok...Thanks again to Richard and everyone who helped us!:-sun1 Jan

[Guest]

I think Dave is onto something. I had been fighting lockups on my machine for the past month with a 9700 Pro. I started with a 1.6G P4. Did not get acceptable performance. So I upgraded the CPU and M-Board to a 2.6 MHz with HT. That is when the fun started and I would get random freezes or jumbled graphics. Anyway after several weeks, the card I believe was finally fried. It is RMA'd back to ATI for a repair. I purchased a 5900 Ultra FX in the meantime to test these theories about the "grainy" graphics and have still been fighting freezes. Tonight after reading Daves post I pulled the side panel off of my tower and placed a house fan on high speed right next to the m-board. I have been flying for hours without a hitch. I had tried every driver for each card available at guru3d.com but was unsuccesful. No problems after getting a little air on the subject. My case has 4 fans built in however they are focused on the CPU (not the GPU). Good call Dave.....Happy Trails (....con that is)MAK

[Guest]

No... again :-mad Lockups returned. Now I'm confused... I thought IRQ change fixed my problem.Jan