FSX Freezing and Continuing Issue

[Aviator99 0]

Hello!
I've been having an extremely frustrating issue for the past 2 months (since late February) in which, after around 3-4 hours of flying, FSX begins a cycle of freezing for around 45 seconds and resuming for around 5-6 seconds. The menus freeze the same way as well, but the sound from the sim continues during the freezes. This has happened in PMDG aircraft and default aircraft alike (it happened in a Trike at one point after I left the sim going for a few hours unattended) in cruise flight, complex, and default sceneries. VAS usage is well below 4 gb during these freezes. These freezes never happened before late February despite the fact that I primarily fly long-haul flights and have done this for well before the freezing issue started.
The issue resolves itself if I restart FSX and resume a saved flight. There is no error message in Event Viewer. FSUIPC autosave is off. I have tried deleting fsx.cfg to no avail. Specs below (laptop):

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz, 2601 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)
Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M (4GB DDR5 VRAM), Intel HD Graphics 530
RAM: 8GB DDR4 2133MHz
Storage: 1TB HDD (5,400 RPM)
 

[dgraham1284 92]

you listed two GPU's. Disable the integrated GPU and use only the 960M

[Aviator99 0]

Hi dgraham,

FSX is only using the NVIDIA card according to my settings page. I had already set up my NVIDIA control panel earlier to make individual applications use the NVIDIA GPU, so FSX no longer gives me the option to use the integrated GPU in the drop down menu.

Edited May 12, 2020 by Aviator99
Extra information

[Aviator99 0]

Updates: When the freezing happened on my last few flights, the problem went away temporarily when I arbitrarily adjusted a setting in the FSX "Display" settings tab. All 3 times I tried this, the problem went away for around 15-20 minutes before returning, after which adjusting the settings did nothing to fix the issue. Task Manager had my CPU usage at around 12% and RAM at around 86% at this point in time, which was not different in any major way from what it normally is. 

Any thoughts? I'm at my wit's end with this issue and am thinking of doing a clean reinstall of FSX at this point. This would be very tedious in terms of addons and other small fixes I've made over the years.

[stans 703]

I expect FSX is running out of VAS.  Even though you have 8 GB of RAM and a  64-bit operating system, FSX is a 32-bit program, so it maxes out at 4 GB of RAM, regardless.  If you are seeing 86% of your 8 GB of RAM in use when FSX freezes, I think that is a good indicator that FSX has hit its 4 GB limit.  Try turning down the autogen setting in FSX.  Autogen eats VAS like you wouldn't believe.

[Brisafresca 58]

@Aviator99

Remember that FSX uses a lot of the cpu and little the gpu, it would be recommended that you use msi afterburner to monitor your laptop, maybe your cpu gets too hot and automatically the cpu, after 2 - 3 hours, should reduce its performance so as not to get damaged.

Take a test flight of 2 - 3 hours, long hauler, but with a few adjustments to the minimum and with the fps blocked at 21 in FSX and also blocked at 20 fps in the rivatuner, (it is included with msi afterburner)

Keep monitoring the cpu temperature from time to time, if FSX closes again perhaps the problem is that you must apply new thermal paste to the cpu and clean the laptop's cooling system.

regards

https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/msi-afterburner-beta-download.html