Need Help with FS2002 Lockup Problem!

[Scott Miller 12]

I'm trying to use it with FS2002 but I'm having some troubles. I think my troubles have more to do with the way FS2002 runs (or doesn't run) on my system. In a nutshell, when I try to fly FS2002 with pretty much any aircraft, FS2002 locks up constantly on me! It's completely random, but seems to occur when a lot is going on (opening or closing windows, switching views quickly or numerous times, sudden increases in scenery detail, or operating aircraft controls (gear, flaps, etc) or a combination of the above. It doesn't seem to matter which plane I'm flying at the time, but seems to happen more frequently with bigger or more complex aircraft (such Dream Wings Embraer 170). I tried changing realism settings and display settings to low and this seemed to help some but the problem persists. As things stand, FS2002 is pretty much unusable as I'm lucky if I can get off the ground before a lockup occurs! My system uses a MSI KT4 Ultra 333 motherboard, an AMD Athlon 1800+ (1.53 G) CPU with 512k ram. I'm using an ATI Radeon 7200/Radeon VE AGP video card with 64 mb ram. Is this sufficient for FS2002 or I need more ram (at least another 512K?) or a better video card perhaps? Is there anything else I can do with FS2002 (other than what I've already tried) to get it to run better on my system in it's current state!?--Scott Miller

[ASterbenz 0]

ScottRandom lockups are usually heat related. AMD tends to run a bit on the hot side. I have run FS2002 on a much lower spec PC an AMD 500mhz without any lockups.Allen

[Scott Miller 12]

Hi AllenHeat is certainly a possible suspect (now that you mention it, I do recall hearing that AMD cpus run hotter than Intel cpus) but I don't think this is the case here. According to PCAlert, my AMD cpu is running at about 105 degrees F, which is well below the max safe temp of 166 (according to PCAlert). Even during last summer the hottest it got was around 115 degrees. I haven't had problems with lockups while using any other software, just FS. I've also experienced random lockups with FS2000 (but not with any previous version) though with far less frequency than with FS2002. I did try putting in a case fan in my system a while back but the slight drop in temperature I got with it (less than 5 degrees) wasn't enough to justify putting up with the noise it produced! While I won't rule out heat completely I think insufficient ram or and out dated video card driver might be more likely...Scott