Recently I rebuilt my PC and ever since Flight Simulator just crashes to desktop. Sometimes with an error message and sometimes without. On a couple of occasions it has caused the PC to reboot completely.I have all the posts and tried the fixes regarding the seasonal bug but nothing seems to fix the problem. Last night I reformatted, did a clean install of XP SP1 and installed all the latest drivers for my graphics / sound cards etc. I re-installed FS2004 and once again it eventually crashed to desktop. Doesn't matter where I fly or what plane I fly with, eventually it will quit, sometimes within 30 seconds, sometimes within an hour. I am really stumped by this one.The specs for my upgraded PC are as follows:Asus K8V Deluxe MBoardAMD64 3200+1GB PC3200 DDR (TwinMos)Maxtor 120GB 7200RPMATI 9700 Pro, Catalyst 3.10Creative Audigy (latest drivers)The only thing I cam think of is that the sim doesn't like the AMD64.I have discounted a problem with the ram as the system sails through any benchmarks without a problem, and all other sims (LOMAC, IL2, Comanche 4) run without any problems.Any help/ideas greatly appreciated. I may have to reluctantly ditch FS2004 until a fix is discovered.Thanks

Welcome to the club!Don't blame it on your hardware, it's pointless.It's one dirty hell of a bug whithin the sim, and a serious show stopper too.I invite you to participate in the "CTD crash fixed" topic to keep track of the problem and try to nail it down.Don't get mislead bt the topic's title, though. The bug hasn't been fixed. What works for some doesn't unfortunally work for others.For people experiencing this, it has become impossible to use the sim, if not under a series of restrictions which are in total contraddiction with the reason the product was bought for in the first place, such as: don't do that, don't fly there, don't use this, disable that, fly in another period of the year, and so on...Ridiculous, may I say.I hope microsoft team of experts will get their acts together, 'cause as far as I'm concerned this might as well be the last version of the sim my hard-disk will ever see.My confidence is growing weaker every day, though...Keep in touch,Luca

I think that you are jumping the gun Luca. Daz says that he just rebuilt his PC. If FS9 worked for him before the rebuild and does not work after the rebuild, then I think it more likely the rebuild than anything else.Daz, I haven't heard much about AMD64s and FS9 but have you checked for BIOS updates? Have you called AMD or Microsoft to ask them about these or similar problems? That is where I would start. R-EDIT--One other thought, after the reformat, OS installation and FS installation, did you try to run FS9 with NO addons? I keep getting the feeling that some (if not most) of these CTDs are being caused by some scenery addons. Else, why do some get'em and some not? R-

Dazzler, Luca,I'm also joining the club and have noticed I developed a "shut-down syndrome" everytime I fly. Always expecting some CTD. Should I fly here? Should I fly there? Should I answer ATC indications? Should I use this or that aircraft? Should I pass over that mountain? Should I create a flight plan? Should I set to day time? to Summer? ...... What if I do any of that and the system crashes? ...and so on.. It is indeed terrible to have a great computer system (in fact 2) and experiencing CTD randomly (on both), and knowing the following facts:1) Fresh installation of the whole system, memory test, fan tests, good ventilation, good power supply, latest drivers, etc.2) Fresh installation of FS9. No addons. 3) Default settings of the video card (9800Pro)4) Different settings inside the sim.5) Fs9 still crashes: sometimes without any messages, sometimes with messages (ntd.dll and ole.dll have been common); and yes, sometimes the whole computer reboots !!!!!!... 6) The above ONLY occur when using FS9. Never with other programs or games.Yes, we'll keep in touch.Gabriel.PS. FS9 is indeed the best sim ever. But it seems to have some bug.

Ron, the purpose of the format/reinstall was to try FS without any addons whatsoever, and the CTD still occurs. Just tried it again as I remembered one other chnage I made to the display settings in FS after upgrading the PC (I put mipmap from 4 to 5). I put it back down to 4 but unfortunately after about 30 mins I was at the desktop.If it is down to hardware it must be some incompatibility in FS as all other sims/programs I own run fine.The only other change to my PC that I didn't mention was a new wireless bluetooth keyboard and mouse though I doubt this is the cause of the CTDs as every other Tom, Dick and Harry are getting them.I'll email microsoft to enquire about any compatibiliy problems re the AMD64 and FS.Thanks, Daz.

And the strange thing is, when the system does reboot it just restarts as though you've just switched it on...no warnings that the system was not shut down properly, no scandisk etc etc.Daz

Ok.It's great to have such fast feedback.I won't personally be answering to messages that state things such as "try to update your BIOS".I have my system, hardware and software, in my hands.The very finest details have been taken care of.CTD's have an annoying random appearance, although they do SEEM to have some causes in common, which I state being DEEPLY EMBEDDED in the sim itself, and from my recent and intense two-weeks experience INDEPENDENT FROM ADD-ONS OF ANY KIND.The matter goes much deeper, trying to isolate the cause in a clean Fs9 installation, considering that most of us end-user don't have neither the knowledge nor the tools to investigate complex software structures.This is why my only hope is that this bug will "GO OFFICIAL" and microsoft will start working on a fix, or else I don't see much of a chance in having it solved, and will strongly consider giving up Fs9.Happy New Year to All.Luca

Guy's,I had this when I upgraded, the cure for *me*, was to disable the AGP Fastwrites in the BIOS...now no CTD's, hope it works for you guy's.Regards,Bob Joneshttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/devteam.jpgwww.precisionmanuals.com

Already disabled...was actually thinking of enabling them again...you never know!!!

Just tried disabling Render To Texture but still CTD (rebooted actually). I sent report to Microsoft and a web page came back saying that the error was caused by a device driver although they could not help in identifying which device caused the problem!?!My question to the big M is....If it was a "device driver" them how come everything else runs fine and dandy?I still think (we all know) that the CTDs are due to some sort of seasonal/date bug in FS. The funny thing is that I thought it was a hardware problem because I recently rebuilt/upgraded my PC...but I didn't have it up and running til mid December and only tried FS again recently (within the last week), so it could be the seasonal issue after all.PS Can FS auto save flights on a regular time interval?

"PS Can FS auto save flights on a regular time interval?"Dazzler,Go to http://www.schiratti.com/dowson.htmlThere is a great utility by Pete Dowson called autosave. Very useful.Regards,Gabriel.

Drop the AGP slot back to 4X. That seemed to help some folks.Best,Bill

Sorry, but this continuous blame on things such as device drivers and bios updates kinda ####### me off.I was hoping that microsoft would realize that most people had to go way beyond basic "upgrade your drivers" software knowledge in order to have the sim functioning.Here we are taking about simmers coming up with their own patches!C'mon, this is getting ridiculous!And if Fs9 is so sensitive to anything going on in your system, it means it was not ready to be released anyway!Let's get a grip on this, please.You can't just re-format your hard drive every week, only because the sim decides it's time to kick you back to the desktop, considering that most peolple keep important stuff in their PC's or simply don't have the time.I would be glad to give up on some bells-and-whistles and have a solid program running on my machine.If microsoft keeps telling us to upgrade drivers, while we (I, at least!) spend hours in trying to grasp what lies behind the darkest corners of software structures in order to solve major functionality problems, our worlds will never meet.Microsoft will still tell us to turn hardware acceleration down two notches, while we might as well keep our damn CTD's all for ourselves!Sounding a little harsh, maybe?Sorry, I haven't been able to fly for two weeks. You know, been updating DEVICE DRIVERS the whole time...;-)Luca

Hello, "Sorry, but this continuous blame on things such as device drivers and bios updates kinda ####### me off.`I have yet to see 95% MsFs users registered here at avsim complaining about CTD one by one Good luck :)In my case, Fs2004 run CTD free and I use the original fs2004.exe with compatible aircraft gauge for fs2004.BestEric

I'm happy for you, Eric.My heart is content for that 95% who can fly the sim.The point is, there's another 5% which is hitting this topic hard because they have been unable to fly for quite a while, and unhappiness is growing strong among this insignificant percentage.If you have any suggestions to help out, you are mostly welcome.Otherwise I wish you good flying.LucaP.S.May I suggest you check a more pleasant, succesfull and popular post, called "I am very satisfied with FS2004".