I'm tearing my hair out...

[Guest pauliecec]

Im sincerely hoping some of you good people here can help me out, I have for 3 months, been trying to fix a problem on my FS9 comp that I just cannot find replicated on any support forum/website. No one can tell me whats up - so far. My specs are P4 2.4 Ghz socket 478 (HT enabled)EPOX 4Pda2+ mainboard.1024MB PC 3200 dual channel DDRM-Audio Delta 66 Sound card - latest DriversClub 3D Geforce 6800GT 8x AGP - latest Nvidia drivers600W ANTECH PSU1 x 250GB Hitachi SATA2 HD1 x 60GB IBM Deskstar IDE HDDFreshly installed on the SATA drive (after a low level format) WIndows XP/w Service pack 2 (all updates to date) FS9 with 9.1 update. My system seems to run fine in normal usage with the performance i'd expect for the spec's, then i go and launch FS9 and things take a twist. I get to the create a flight screen and set up a simple flight in the default Cessna or 737 at KSEA or KJFK, the flight loads fine and im on the tarmac ready to take off when suddenly the system slows to a crawl. During this I notice that in Windows Task Manager the SYSTEM process is using 90-100% of CPU cycles (not system idle process) and keeps using them until I reboot the system. I have other no added hardware on this machine. Diagnostics I have tried to date: tried a different P4 2.4 ghz - same issuetried 2 types of RAM from different manufacturers - same issueTried another video card - (64MB on board) same issueTried another sound card - same issuereplaced heatsink on processors/chipset. Bought an extra system fan and 2 x HDD fans for cooling - same issue. removed motherboard and all components and reseated everything. Ran diagnistics on processor/ram and components with a variety of diags programs - nothing found. Low level formatted my HDD, re-partitioned it and reinstalled WIN XP and SP 2 - connected to windows update and updated everything. fresh installed FS9 and tried using it with and without the 9.1 update - still the same issue. Now, apart from retiring this not so old system which is well capable of running FS9 (fyi - im running FS9 on my 1.8ghz laptop w 1 gig ram and ATI mobility w 64MB and its running sweet) I dont know what to try next, this only happens when I run FS9, before my hosing of the system I ran Half Life 2 and MOH, top settings no problem, no issues, it's just FS9 that causes this thing with the SYSTEM task in task manager chewing my CPU cycles. So if you guys have any notion where I can go from here I would be grateful if you would share it with me. ;-)Thanks in advance good flyingPaul

[Guest ThrottleUp]

Hallo,1. Are you running FS9 with any addon scenery or just default?2. What CPU priority is FS9 given? (Task Manager > Processes tab > Right-click FS9.exe > Set Priority)3. Try running FS9 with *every* other program in your System Tray disabled (anti-virus, anti-spyware etc) Of course disconnect from the net before doing all of this.*EDIT*...ooops just read that you have been trying to sort this out for three months so Im sure you have tried all of the above. Im sure you will get a reply from the Avsim gurus though. It will work out...theres always a way :)

[Guest pauliecec]

Thanks Throttleup, yep.. running FS9 in as virgin a mode as you can get, tried with and without other SW installed. Right now its just WIn XP, SP2 and FS9 with 9.1 update... Video and sound drivers are the latest too...yep.. three months and no luck, im hoping you guys here can shed some light on it or at least convince me to burn the machine :0))

[Guest ThrottleUp]

Im sure someone else will but I cannot for the life of me remember the name of a program that was designed to root out the causes of problems such as yours. It was kind of a hardware & software "leak-tester" that found out what was using exessive CPU cycles...you could really drill down to the trouble maker.*Thinks*.....

[Egbert Drenth 250]

Hi,Check if your indexing service is running and indexing all files on your disks.I had this a while ago, and one of my systems (not FS) was incredibly slow after a while. It turned out to be the indexing service.Make sure to uncheck all check-boxes on your harddisk (properties) and disable the indexing services.

[Guest Sticks]

Goto driverheaven.com and post your question there. I have yet to read a problem those guys can't figure out. They're big time gamers and can fix a problem before it even rears its ugly head.

[Guest pauliecec]

Hi, just tried that.. ran FS and the same thing happened. SYSTEM process using 95% CPU :-(Thanks anyway

[Jwcfly 0]

Paul: Pardon if you have already tried this:http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Autoruns.htmlIt may help.

[Egbert Drenth 250]

What happens if you disable HT on your processor?For sure I know the RXP Garmins do not like HT. Maybe some other process too..BTW: Does a P4 2.4 anyway has HT? I have on one system a 2.8Ghz and I think HT was introduced with the 3.0+ Ghz processors.

[Guest ThrottleUp]

-------------------------------------------------What happens if you disable HT on your processor?-------------------------------------------------Nothing. I notice no difference between HT on and HT off. I turned mine off (you have to do it from the BIOS screen).Applications need to be written to take advantage of HT and Im not so sure FS9 is. Perhaps it will be a different story with FSX.Easy way to find out if your chip has HT is press CTRL + ALT + DEL then go to Performance tab and if you see *two* CPU usage windows then you have HT. Also you can check your BIOS.

[Guest pauliecec]

Hi All, Thanks to you all for replying to me, it's very much appreciated. I have tried with and without HT enabled, this makes no difference, I've also tried a lot of the performance tips n tricks described on these boards, then I initially thought it was a PSU issue and went out and got a 600w to ensure the video card was getting enough juice but no luck... I have tried sysinternals app, process explorer, it just shows the SYSTEM process as it does in Task Manager using CPU cycles. Its a clean install of XP so there is no contamination by 3rd party applications hiding themselves in startup or as other services. ( I have also tried disabling as many services as I could)I am thinking it is hardware related in some form, usually a format and re-install of the SW fixes corruption issues. The only thing left to change is the mobo. Thanks again guys.

[cat 2]

What joy stick set-up are you using.Peter Sydeny Australia

[Guest pauliecec]

Hello, I just use a bog standard MS force feedback 2., I have tried FS with and without this attached.

[svenks 4]

Hi PaulBeen googling around a bit (as I'm sure you have), but without any conclusive clues.But do tell me: Do you have any exclamation marks in Device Manager?And have you checked for updated Chipset Drivers?EDIT: At least 1 user had the same problem as you when playing games: He solved it by turning off hardware sound! So maybe you should try fiddling with your sound setting - you might want to try pressing Q in FS first of all to turn off sound.EDIT: Oh, and what other software are you running? Anti-spyware, Anti-virus, but also things like printer monitors can apparently produce these problems.BRGDSSven Sorensen, EKCH

[Egbert Drenth 250]

>EDIT: At least 1 user had the same problem as you when playing>games: He solved it by turning off hardware sound! So maybe>you should try fiddling with your sound setting - you might>want to try pressing Q in FS first of all to turn off sound.>Good suggestion.Reminds me about DXDIAG. (Startup via START/RUN -> dxdiag)You can run this tool and do some tests. Also in this tool you can set your sound acceleration a notch back.