Hi Greg, I was thinking, I only have a 300 watt power supply running 4 hard drives, two on a fast track TX2 raid card, a canopus capture card and my video card. Maybe I am getting small drops in the system voltage? I was considering getting an Antec 550 volt to replace this. Thanks for the tip. Talk to you soon, J. Moss

I was having problems with FS crashing my computer awhile back. I solved the problem by updating my sound card driver. Seems strange that a sound card problem would crash FS back to desktop, but it did. You said you replaced the video card, how bout your sound card? Scott

I am using the on-board nvidia 5.1 sound built in to the mother board and have the latest drivers installed. In one of my previous replies in this post, I mentioned the CTD'S went away for a while, so I don't think that's the problem. At this point, who knows? I haven't thought about the sound card issue.

Upgrade your OS to Win XP. Win2K is wrought with bugs that manifest themselves in this manner. Don't dump another dime into hardware until you get a decent OS.

:-hmmm Cheers,Gosta.http://www.hifisim.com/images/as2betateam.jpg:-hmmm

Isn't Windows 2000 typically regarded as being the most stable OS for MSFS (or certainly for gaming PCs)?I've never had a prob with it. XP is too resource consuming for FS I would've thought?Cheers :)Josh

UPDATE: Hello all, hope your easter was a good one. I downloaded the Joachim patch. When I tried applying the scenery config file with the two bmps as instructed , the sim would crash to the desktop upon starting a flight. I then restored the config file, leaving the two bmp's in place, then I applied the mapclass fix, and all seems to be fine at this time. (My fingers are crossed)However, my performance is slightly less for some reason, but I am not changing anything for now! ("if it's not broken, don't fix it") I will keep you up to date on any progress. Thank you all for your honest input! I noticed that there are some users that don't like Win2000pro. It has the same kernel as XP, just more media friendly. I am planning a change to XP soon. Let me know what you think. Talk to everyone soon. Best regards, J. Moss

I'm glad to hear that you're back and running. I can't directly compare XP and Win2000, but in terms of Win98, Win98SE, WinME, XP is far superior to it's predecessors, particularly ME. I've found it to be a good investment. If you decide to upgrade be certain that you upgrade directX and add the service packs also.I think that it's a good move.Best Regards,Ed GreenKCLThttp://www.panelshop.com/images/DEV.jpg