Multiple CTDs - StackHash, NTDLL.dll, Sim1.dll

[Ray Proudfoot 9,009]

Back in September I ordered a PC that I thought would help me enjoy many years of trouble-free flights with FSX. Sadly, that has not been the case and today I have made the decision to return it to the company that built it for me for the motherboard to be exchanged.

 

The Asus Maximus VI Gene has suffered several frozen BIOS clock issues that software updates haven't been able to fix. On other occasions my Saitek Pro Yoke has failed to be recognised by W7 despite nothing having been unplugged or plugged in since it was last used.

 

Today I attempted to fly from KDEN to KSFO. FSX crashed with the aircraft parked at the gate with STACKHASH errors and even after deleting and rebuilding the indexes I was barely able to get 1/3 of the way to KSFO before other crashes - NTDLL.DLL and - for the first time - SIM1.DLL.

 

At that point I gave up and contacted the company. In 20 years of using PCs I've never had a frozen BIOS clock or USB problems until this Asus board. I'm changing it for the Gigabyte Z87 Sniper M5. A good friend who also bought his PC at the same time from the same company had similar issues with his Asus-based PC and has successfully switched to a Gigabyte based system. Both machines are overclocked but have been bench tested for 48 hours so should be stable.

 

Hopefully the swap will end the problems. I still expect to get occasional FSX crashes as we all do because it does have problems but not to the extent that makes flying all but impossible.

[Jim Young 2,356]

That's strange.  I had exactly the same issues with my new ASUS Z87 Deluxe MB.  Recently I fixed the frozen clock by turning off the system but not pulling the plug from the PSU and then hit the CMOS button.  It took me several months to figure that one out and I even had to go on the Internet and download a time service so as my system could keep up on time.

 

Then, recently, I have had a series of BEX/StackHash CTD's but they have now stopped (fingers crossed) and now I'm getting NTDLL.dll CTD's.  Those have now stopped temporarily too (or, let's say I've had a couple of CTD free flights where the errors would happen 100% of the time).  I did the following so far:

 

• moved the fsuipc modules folder to a temporary directory (CTD)
• uninstalled ASN (CTD)
• ran fsx w/PMDG777 with real weather turned on (CTD)
• ran FSX w/o any weather loaded in the PMDG777.  (CTD)
• ran default 747 w/real weather turned on - NO CTD.
• returned OC to default optimized settings and made sure CPU 'C States' were disabled.  This stopped ntdll.dll errors but StackHash continued.

It's possible the PMDG aircraft is looking for a license and maybe calling home to make sure my software is valid and the firewall is preventing access.  If that's the case, then don't know what to do as I have not changed any of the rules or policies in the system firewall.  I had no problems with the PMDG 777 until now.  I will try the 777 again to see if somehow I fixed the problem.  If not, I will try an uninstall/reinstall of the PMDG 777.

 

Most importantly, I ruled out weather, the fsuipc.dll, and ASN as the culprit.  I do not use tweaks but I have tweaked LOD_Radius to 6.5 and the Texture_Max_Load to 2048.  My system should easily handle those settings (Haswell 4770K).  It has gotten so bad with the CTD's that every time I fly I have to hold my breath about 10-15 minutes after takeoff and I'm excited when I pass that point and it looks like my flight will continue without an issue.  The hours I have spent trying to trouble-shoot this problem is enormous and it's fortunate it's freezing cold outside and I cannot get out and golf.  Otherwise, I would probably be looking at giving up on this hobby.  I want to fly and enjoy and not be hit with constant crashes.

 

Hope you get your problem fixed Ray.

 

Best regards,

[Ray Proudfoot 9,009]

Hi Jim,

 

Are those your own comments about your system? I have tried that frozen clock fix and it lasted for around 4 weeks before starting up again yesterday. If it was just that I might just learn to live with it but with the USB problems as well I just get the feeling the Asus boards have some underlying issues.

 

The fact that a friend also bought his PC at the same time as me from the same company and also had problems makes me think it's an Asus issue.

 

My crashes seem to happen when flying in the US. Most of the last month I've been flying in Europe and it's been fine.

 

Given I have the option to change the mobo I'll go with that and hope the problems go away. To have had years of stable flights with FS9 and now all this with an expensive computer with FSX is a bitter disappointment.

 

I should also add I'm flying a PMDG737 from FS9 but without a panel as I use Project Magenta. LOD is 6.5 but Max Texture Load is still 4096. Plenty of VAS left. Even 30 mins into a flight can cause a crash. That's why I've come to the end of my tether.

[Jim Young 2,356]

Hi Ray,

 

Those comments are about my current system.  The frozen clock issue was driving me crazy.  I heard it may return but now I know how to fix it even if it is for a short period of time.  I have updated my BIOS to 1707 which is the latest for my board.  You might check to see if you have the latest too.  When I updated my BIOS though it did not fix the clock issue and I had to push the CMOS reset button.  In any case, the BIOS update stated it improved stability (whatever that means).

 

I found the Texture_Max_Load 4096 causes a lot of crashes.  This is why I moved mine down to 2048 (which is HD too).  If you have 4096 textures in a graphics program, say REX or AS2012, this causes a lot of problems for some reason.  Let's say I could reproduce an ntdll.dll crash 100% of the time with those settings.  I'll be testing more tonight to see if I got the StackHash/ntdll.dll errors fixed.  Most likely I will have to reinstall the PMDG737 and 777 as something might have gotten corrupted. 

 

With your system (which is very similar to mine), I would not employ any tweaks.  I'm not overclocking my system until I get my FSX stable again. 

 

Best regards,

[Ray Proudfoot 9,009]

Hi Jim,

 

I realised after I posted that you were referring to your own system. The italics had me confused at first thinking you might be quoting someone else.

 

I haven't updated the BIOS because the company I bought the PC from have overclocked it for me and I need to know how to save and reload my o/c settings otherwise I lose them. But the techies there haven't advised me to update the BIOS yet. I did ask on the ROG forums why they don't expand on 'improves stability' and they said they don't because they don't want to give any clues to the competition! I found that hard to believe!

 

It's still being collected on Monday but I'll try a lower Max Texture setting - maybe 2048 instead of 4096. I use 1024 clouds in REX having downgraded from 2048 ones just to help VAS.

 

The major tweak I have used is BP=0 and Water Texture = 2.0 Med (from memory). I get no artifacts with those but did have with Water = 1.0 High.

 

I could switch overclocking off but performance at some airports would be unacceptable. And given I have paid a reputable company to overclock it I would trust they know what they're doing. They do bench-test it for 48hrs before despatch so the PC should be stable.

 

Bit more testing with different settings tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

[Jim Young 2,356]

 

 

I bought the PC from have overclocked it for me and I need to know how to save and reload my o/c settings otherwise I lose them.

 

Hi Ray,

 

Yes, your OC will be lost when you update the BIOS.  What I do is insert one of those flash USB drives into a USB port (I have a 16GB flash drive) then, in the BIOS, I go to each page of the bios, hit F12, and it will take a picture of the screen and you can save it to your flash drive.  Sometimes, not all of the information for all the settings in AITweaker so I move the cursor down until everything I want to have as an image is shown, hit F12 and that is saved.  This way I can print out each page from the flash drive or, since I have a laptop too, I simply plug the flash drive in there and I can view the settings for each page in the BIOS.  I can then use that to return my settings to what I have before I upgraded the BIOS.  One good thing about ASUS (and most BIOS developers) is that if things go wrong you can simply exit the BIOS (F10) and select Load Optimized Defaults (which gives you an OC of about 3.8 or 3.9GHz) and the default bios settings will load without any problems.  One of the things that causes a lot of unexplained crashes are the BIOS settings.  If your CPU voltage is off just one degree or your RAM settings are off just a little bit, it will cause FSX to crash and sometimes you'll get a BSOD.  Most of the time it will result in just a crash with ntdll.dll as the cause.  This is one reason why I moved my OC back to the optimized defaults.

 

Can't believe you're still up!

 

Best regards,

[Ray Proudfoot 9,009]

Hi Jim,

 

Thanks for those tips. The Asus does have the facility to save the BIOS settings to a memory stick and to load them back. I have two profiles created by Scan (the company that built it) - Standard and Overclocked.

 

I can choose Standard and all the settings are changed for me. Likewise should I choose Overclocked. Scan have a good reputation in the UK for their PCs and as they bench-test them I'd be surprised if the system was unreliable but I'm not ruling out that possibility. But as I've lost faith with Asus because of the problems previously mentioned I want to switch to Gigabyte.

 

Should the crashes still occur after the swap then I'll need to consider my next move. But my good friend has reported none of the problems I've encountered since he switched to a Gigabyte so I'm reasonably optimistic.

 

I've not had any BSODs with FSX so that's encouraging. And it's strange that I've had many more problems flying in the US than Europe even though it's default scenery apart from FTX Global and KORD addon airport. KDEN is default and the latest crashes occurred when I was flying over the Rockies with little Ai around. The system was hardly being stressed.

 

Yes, I tend to stay up 'til midnight as I'm retired now. :smile:

[Jim Young 2,356]

 

 

The Asus does have the facility to save the BIOS settings to a memory stick and to load them back.

 

I cannot save the settings on my ASUS Z87 Deluxe to a memory stick or HDD.  I can save the profile settings within the BIOS though but those are wiped out when I update the BIOS. 

 

I got rid of my ntdll.dll crashes (lowering the OC) but the StackHash crashes have returned for every aircraft including the default. 

 

Best regards,

[Ray Proudfoot 9,009]

I cannot save the settings on my ASUS Z87 Deluxe to a memory stick or HDD. I can save the profile settings within the BIOS though but those are wiped out when I update the BIOS.

 

Pity as it makes reloading them so much easier. I've resisted any BIOS update unless my supplier requests I do as I don't want to do anything they haven't advised in case it affects my return policy.

 

I got rid of my ntdll.dll crashes (lowering the OC) but the StackHash crashes have returned for every aircraft including the default.

 

 

You deserve better Jim with all the help you give others. I had another ntdll.dll crash just parked at a gate at KDEN. I'm parked there now to see if I an replicate it. If I can I'll start by lowering Ai by 10% (currently 50%) and see if that makes a difference. I'll pass the time by reading the paper.

 

If I don't get a crash then I'll consider what to do next. But only one thing at a time will change. Mobo is still being returned but this is useful for deermining what's causing these crashes anyway.

[Jim Young 2,356]

Hi Ray,

 

Thanks for your kind comments.  I intend to find out what is causing these StackHash errors as a lot of members have been getting them.  My research on Google indicated a Firewall setting might be the blame as one individual got rid of his StackHash error by uninstalling a commercial firewall program.  I decided to look [again] at mine.  I decided to allow more programs incoming access as my Firewall setting (the default I assume) states "Block all connections to programs that are not on the list of allowed programs".  Well, I looked at the list of allowed programs and many were unchecked such as:

• Distributed Transaction Coordinator
• File and Printer Sharing
• Windows Media Player

I checked these programs, ran a flight with the PMDG777 and NO StackHash crash.  I think the Distributed Transaction Coordinator might be the culprit if I have actually found the fix.  But, I was getting 100% StackHash crashes at a certain point in my flightplan and this time no crash.  If I don't get anymore StackHash crashes, then this is the fix.   

 

Your AI might be a little high.  I have mine at 40% and use MyTrafficX.  The developer recommended a setting no higher than 40% as that eventually equaled 100% as schedules are being activated around the world.  I do not know what AI traffic addon you have installed but, if it is MyTrafficX, be aware that there is a known problem with version 5.4c which generates an ntdll.dll error 100% of the time.  Probably a memory leak.  A fix and more information about the problem is on the developer's website.  One individual I helped this week with this problem installed the fix but it did not fix his problem (it worked for me).  He found out that only the 2012 schedules work with the fix.  The developer is still working on fixing it permanently.

 

Hope this helps you!

 

Best regards,

[Ray Proudfoot 9,009]

Hi Jim,

 

I checked my firewall programs and Distributed Transaction Coordinator was the only one of the 3 you listed that wasn't checked. It is now.

 

Good work on the STACKHASH problem. That was so dispiriting when I read the CTD help that no fixes were known. Fingers crossed it stays that way.

 

I've been sitting at the gate at KDEN for the past 40 mins and haven't had a crash. How annoying is that? I've just exited FSX and it's crashed - reason unknown but I did choose to close it with the prompt that appeared.

 

Yes, I do have MyTrafficX v5.4C and I will reduce it to 40%. I must have missed that recommendation, thanks.

 

I have downloaded the fix but I also saw that it had caused problems for some so haven't applied it yet.

 

I'm going to try KDEN-KSFO again and see if I get any further than yesterday.

[Jim Young 2,356]

Hi Ray,

 

This is certainly a frustrating hobby with these crashes!  I will be most interested if the Distributed Transaction Coordinator activation in the Firewall settings stops any of your StackHash errors or even others who might be having this issue.  It did fix one problem I was having in the Event Viewer.  I kept getting an Event 10016, DistributedCom, error.  It kept saying the machine-default permission settings do not grant Local Activation permission for the COM Server application with CLSID {BC50CF2A-E12C-4F18-90CE-714CC8600CEE}.  Microsoft said I had to go into Component Services and reset the default settings.  Well, I looked there and they were at default settings so I have been living with this issue for a couple of weeks.  Since I activated the firewall setting, the event no longer shows up.  Wahoo!! 

 

I'm fearful of doing another flight as I don't want to see the StackHash error pop up again and have to go back to square one.  Yet, before I made this change to the firewall setting I was getting the CTD 100% of the time with the PMDG777 and the 737NGX and occasionally with default aircraft.  I don't know how it was turned off except that I did reset the firewall settings to the default a couple of weeks ago and maybe one of the addons had activated Distributed Transaction Coordinator and the default unchecked it.

 

The MyTrafficX fix worked for me but I did see it did not for everyone.  You can still go into the Add/Remove programs and uninstall 5.4c and that will take you back to 5.2b.  That's what I had done and then, when I heard there was a fix, I installed 5.4c then the fix.  Maybe that's the reason I avoided the problem.

 

When you get an unknown error while shutting down fsx, that usually means something did not shut down properly and I would not be too concerned unless it keeps showing up.  Usually, after I get an unknown module showing as the cause of the crash, it later starts turning into a StackHash or NTDLL.dll error.

 

Good luck on your KDEN-KSFO flight!

 

Best regards,

[Ray Proudfoot 9,009]

This is certainly a frustrating hobby with these crashes!

 

You're telling me! I had less frustration when I was working! :wink:

 

 

I will be most interested if the Distributed Transaction Coordinator activation in the Firewall settings stops any of your StackHash errors or even others who might be having this issue. It did fix one problem I was having in the Event Viewer. I kept getting an Event 10016, DistributedCom, error. It kept saying the machine-default permission settings do not grant Local Activation permission for the COM Server application with CLSID {BC50CF2A-E12C-4F18-90CE-714CC8600CEE}. Microsoft said I had to go into Component Services and reset the default settings. Well, I looked there and they were at default settings so I have been living with this issue for a couple of weeks. Since I activated the firewall setting, the event no longer shows up. Wahoo!!

 

 

Well the good news is that the flight to KSFO went without a hitch. :biggrin:  Just to confirm I enabled Distributed Transaction Coordinator in the Firewall and reduced Ai to 40%. The scariest phase was the approach when the infamous SFO low cloud / fog obscured the runway until 500AGL. Thank God for autopilots!

 

I forgot to check Event Viewer for that instance but will tomorrow.

 

Now of course we both know that making assumptions on a single flight are dangerous. I would need to make another dozen 1000+ mile flights before I start to believe that my problems are behind me. But that flight was an encouraging start.

 

 

I'm fearful of doing another flight as I don't want to see the StackHash error pop up again and have to go back to square one. Yet, before I made this change to the firewall setting I was getting the CTD 100% of the time with the PMDG777 and the 737NGX and occasionally with default aircraft. I don't know how it was turned off except that I did reset the firewall settings to the default a couple of weeks ago and maybe one of the addons had activated Distributed Transaction Coordinator and the default unchecked it.

 

 

I know how you feel but fortune favours the brave. :wink:  It makes no sense to me that switching on a service in the Firewall would solve FSX problems but that's computers for you. I also need to add that exiting FSX was clean. Instead of hitting the red X top right I used the menu - Flight...Exit FS. That's another encouraging step.

 

The MyTrafficX fix worked for me but I did see it did not for everyone. You can still go into the Add/Remove programs and uninstall 5.4c and that will take you back to 5.2b. That's what I had done and then, when I heard there was a fix, I installed 5.4c then the fix. Maybe that's the reason I avoided the problem.

 

 

I'll make a note to do this but the computer is being collected on Monday and I'll be without it for a week, maybe longer. Over the weekend I'll try another flight in Europe that has crashed on me a couple of times.

 

When you get an unknown error while shutting down fsx, that usually means something did not shut down properly and I would not be too concerned unless it keeps showing up. Usually, after I get an unknown module showing as the cause of the crash, it later starts turning into a StackHash or NTDLL.dll error.

 

 

One thing I did differently was not to load EFB Data Provider using AlacrityPC. That's a utility for stopping services and starting several program instead of you doing it manually. Might just be a coincidence though as other flights using that routine have been fine.

 

As you said earlier what is needed is for others to try the settings you suggested and see if it sorts their problems. Fingers crossed!

[Jim Young 2,356]

Awesome post!  Glad your flight went well.  I'm like you.  I cannot believe a firewall service would make any difference but, those who had StackHash crashes outside of FSX, found there was a problem with a firewall setting.  I did another quick flight and again had no CTD.  Still knocking on wood.

 

Another quick point I wanted to make about StackHash crashes is that disabling DEP does not work.  There's a lot of discussion about StackHash CTD's are caused because DEP is enabled.  Well, in FSX, Microsoft will not allow you to disable it but there's a freeware program at MajorGeeks.com that enables/disables DEP.  I tried that and no joy.

 

I like that flight from Denver or Las Vegas to San Francisco.  Very scenic over all the mountains.  I have MSE V2 for the whole US and it's an awesome flight.

 

I've learned a lot here.  Thanks a lot Ray for your suggestions and feedback.

 

Best regards,

[Jim Young 2,356]

An update:  StackHash immediately upon starting up FSX.  No longer knocking on wood....

 

Best regards,