At a loss, COF Crashing still...frustrated

[Guest abent]

I have been suffering crashes after about an hour of flying. Last night on final to Halifax after a nice dusk flight COF simply shuts off and bounces me to desktop. I was in a turn and as soon as ATC started to talk to give me directions, it stuttered a couple of times and crashed. COF does NOT try to restart and gives no error message. Immediately after the crash, other programs are very sluggish to load.I have tested my RAM with DocMem20 and it passes all tests. I have MotherBoardMonitor5 and my CPU and case temps are low, I have never seen the cpu exceed 40C during hard simming (IDK, maybe I've got the sensor set wrong as that seems low for hard working). The side is off my tower.Sys:WinXP Home (fully updated)2.4 P4 NorthwoodMSI 648MAX mobo (latest SIS drivers)MSI TI4200 128MB (5216 XP drivers)768 MB DDR333Any other suggestions appreciated. And I do thank those who have offered advice in the past.I did take out my video card a week or so ago and the fan was clogged pretty bad. I cleaned it out and things seemed to work ok for a while. Might I have damaged my TI4200? Is there a test for the card?Thanks, Adam

[Guest RonB49]

Hi Adam,Did this start recently? Have you tried reverting to an earlier XP restore point? I thought of this because you mention that other programs are sluggish after a crash event. Regarding your video card concerns, do you have an old video card that you could substitute to see if it solves the crashes? I know that you've been around this hobby for a while and perhaps your computer room (like mine) has one corner that resembles a computer museum. R-

[Guest abent]

Hey Ron, Thanks for the response. Yeah, I was having a some crashing problems with COF before under WinMe, that's why I switched to XP - assuming it was the problem. The crashes are, let's say, less frequent under XP, but they are prevalent. They started almost immediately after XP was installed so I'm not sure a restore point would help, but I will give it a try anyway.LOL, my room is like an old computer graveyard, however, unfortunately, I always give away my older vid cards to friends with smaller budgets so don't have one to try out at present.I think I'll pick up a small desk fan and try it blowing directly across the video card. Since my sys RAM seems good, maybe it IS the video card overheating, though the vc fan is whizzing away nicely.Anyway, I'll keep plugging away at the problem.Thanks again, Adam

[John_Cillis 2,406]

"Since my sys RAM seems good, maybe it IS the video card overheating"Don't discount the RAM quite yet. I had a similar problem a long time ago in FS2002.... Suspected RAM, but running most of the popular RAM test utilities showed nothing. Still, the crashes were pretty consistent. Even after unseating and reseating the RAM, no difference. Finally, I swapped bank 1 and bank 3.... Problem solved.... I've since replaced the ram chip which was in bank 3....I suspect it was simply a marginal chip, and only tended to fail when under stress. Even possible its being in bank 3 was enough, as it was further away from two sources of heat--my cpu and video card. Anyway, RAM can always give us fits, so if your video card isn't the problem, that's one thing to always look at.And I should add, alsotake a look at any USB devices installed. More than one simmer has found a camera, or a scanner, or some other usb device caused problems with the sim...-John

[Guest abent]

Thanks John. I've got one 512 chip and one 256 chip installed. I was running on the 512 alone in WinMe and after I installed XP, I decided to put the other 256 in. WinMe was very unstable with the 768MB. Just as with Me, after installing the other 256 chip, I get a constantly blinking HDD light. It pulses at almost a 1 second interval continuously the whole time the computer is on. If I take out the 256 and run with just 512, the blinking is gone. Does this mean anything? Thanks again, Adam

[Guest abent]

Gents, I just read another post about video memory reloading. I too am suffering from slow texture 'replacement' when I switch to the outside view of the aircraft. Piece by piece the plane will rebuild itself. It first appears grey and then the textures start popping onto the plane. Sometimes just a few textures are missing - sometimes all of them. Wouldn't this have something to do with RAM - video or otherwise?Thanks, Adam

[Guest tatfsn]

Hi--I had an almost identical problem with ACOF, with a Dell P4 3.0 GHz, 1 GB RAM machine that I had just purchased!!! ACOF would just quit and leave me staring at the desktop consistently, after approximately 2 hours of flying. My video card is a different one from yours, and the phenomenon did not seem to affect the other applications at all.That I've seen more than one report of this, from folks with different systems and different setups, would seem to indicate that it's not your system, but an anomoly in ACOF itself that seems to rear its ugly head in certain circumstances. After ranting and raving and pulling out my hair a bit I did some research, and found some suggestions (some of which I saw on this forum, and others that I got from the knowledge base at Microsoft's web site). Since I implemented them I have had no more problems (knock on wood, fingers crossed). Make sure that you've got Direct X 9.0b installed, the latest available drivers for your card (which you've done). Also check your Graphics Hardware Acceleration (via the Control Panel), and Sound Acceleration settings (via "Run" then "dxdiag," and set them to "basic." The Microsoft site has additional steps, including disabling the AGP texturing in the Direct X diagnostic tool (also via dxdiag), and some drastic steps, including "clean booting" the PC, and uninistalling/reinstalling ACOF on the PC, once it's "clean booted." Fortunately I think I solved the problem before getting to the point of having to try the latter two!! I remember way back when, in the days of FS98, when I had a different PC, and had a very similar problem. The program would function fine for awhile, then I would get an error message informing me that the program would have to shut down. Just as now (I think), an installation of the later version of Direct X eliminated the problem. As soon as I discovered that Direct X 9.0b was out, I was pretty certain that that was a big part of the solution. So far, so good.Hope this is of help to you.

[Chris Willis 8]

Hi, Try to edit this:Fs9.cfg under: (DISPLAY)TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=40 <------------ to a higher value ex: 400This setting controls the rate at which textures get transferred to the video hardware. Higher numbers will result in the textures getting to the hardware faster and avoiding "popping" texture.I do have the same card like you, Asus Gforce 4 Ti 4200 8X, Nvidia 52.16, DDR 333 512MB Ram, Asus P4P800 8X board, Windows XP Pro, latest direct X, NO background software running in background such as antis virus etc. I do not suffer like your issue.ThanksChris Willis[link:fsw.simflight.com/FSWMenuFsSim.html]Clouds And Addons For MsFshttp://fsw.simflight.com/fsw.jpg

[John_Cillis 2,406]

Chris--I believe he's talking about an issue that has nothing to do with the texture bandwidth multiplier, which is intended for ground textures.But I don't think the issue is FS2004 related. Instead, it seems related to aircraft "bloat" as far as texture size is concerned. One aircraft I recently downloaded (and subsequently have deleted) had over 64 megs of textures. Bit of a stretch for a 128 meg card to display that and COF's ground textures. I suppose I could have converted the textures, but I haven't had much time in recent weeks to enjoy MSFS as my business travel has picked up.Happily, 90 pct. of the aircraft I enjoy have reasonable texture sizes...-John

[Guest OneTinSoldier]

Hello Adam,Some motherboards are very picky about RAM modules. Are you certain that your motherboard is capable of running diffrent size RAM modules together? Are these RAM modules exactly the same in throughput (as in DDR 333 for example), CAS and RAS latency speeds? I recommend you run RAM that matches the same exact speed, and if at all possible, made by the same manufacterer. I'm not sure what the constantly blinking light means but it doesn't sound good to me. I have an old computer that runs fine with one of the RAM modules in it that has a the same speed(PC66) but different RAS and CAS latency speeds and is by a different manufacturer, but sometimes these areas are sticklers in some motherboards. Does FS2004 still crash on you when you run with only the 512 MB module installed? I take it that it does as you seem to be trying a lot of things. I wish I knew how to help you further, but I can only think of suggesting that you replace the 256 MB module with a 512 MB module that matches your current 512 MB'er.Regards,Jim

[Guest abent]

Thanks guys for all the great advice.Chris, I will try your .cfg edit.John and tatsfn, I'll look into your suggestions re RAM. The RAM I have, although different module sizes, is both from the same manufacturer (according to the computer store I bought it) and the same type, DDR333 PC2700. I'll try swapping them and failing that, I'll pick up another 512 stick. I'm sure having a Gig of RAM would upset COF too much.I have dx9b installed as well. And the blinking HDD light...who knows!Thanks!I'll post my progress.Adam

[Guest Raw75sy]

I fooled around with my Directx settings as suggested and seem to have solved the problem...Fingers crossed!!Thanx for the help...s