Hello, allI've just gotten a hold of my copy of FSX. Installation went fine, but as soon as I started my first flight, I went to switch views and the screen went black, and the computer re started. The Microsoft Crash Analysis says it's in my C-Media sound card, but when I disabled it in the hardware profile, it still did it. I've tried the joystick (Saitek ST290 Pro) drivers, and no dice. I did a trick about disabling the "nearest tower view", and used the "s" button on the keyboard. My PC is not the best, but it should have more than enough to run FSX in a lower res mode. Somebody please Help! Here is my complete system info if anyone can sift through this. I'm "Computer Literate", but the technical aspect of this is a bit much for me.System Information report written at: 10/29/06 19:20:53System Name: USER-DFC459FD71[system Summary]Item Value OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Professional Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600 OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation System Name USER-DFC459FD71 System Manufacturer P4V80 System Model P4VM800 System Type X86-based PC Processor x86 Family 15 Model 2 Stepping 9 GenuineIntel ~2400 Mhz BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends Inc. P1.30, 9/23/2005 SMBIOS Version 2.3 Windows Directory C:WINDOWS System Directory C:WINDOWSsystem32 Boot Device DeviceHarddiskVolume1 Locale United States Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158)" User Name USER-DFC459FD71User Time Zone Eastern Standard Time Total Physical Memory 512.00 MB Available Physical Memory 100.80 MB Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB Available Virtual Memory 1.94 GB Page File Space 993.81 MB Page File C:pagefile.sys [Hardware Resources][Conflicts/Sharing]Resource Device I/O Port 0x00000000-0x00000CF7 PCI bus I/O Port 0x00000000-0x00000CF7 Direct memory access controller IRQ 21 VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller IRQ 21 VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller IRQ 21 VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller IRQ 21 VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller IRQ 21 VIA USB Enhanced Host Controller IRQ 22 C-Media AC97 Audio Device IRQ 22 HSP56 MR (VIA) Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF PCI bus Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 [DMA]Resource Device Status Channel 4 Direct memory access controller OK Channel 2 Standard floppy disk controller OK Channel 3 ECP Printer Port (LPT1) OK [Forced Hardware]Device PNP Device ID [i/O]Resource Device Status 0x00000000-0x00000CF7 PCI bus OK 0x00000000-0x00000CF7 Direct memory access controller OK 0x00000D00-0x0000FFFF PCI bus OK 0x000003B0-0x000003BB NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 OK 0x000003C0-0x000003DF NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 OK 0x0000EC00-0x0000EC07 VIA SATA RAID Controller OK 0x0000E800-0x0000E803 VIA SATA RAID Controller OK 0x0000E400-0x0000E407 VIA SATA RAID Controller OK 0x0000E000-0x0000E003 VIA SATA RAID Controller OK 0x0000DC00-0x0000DC0F VIA SATA RAID Controller OK 0x0000D800-0x0000D8FF VIA SATA RAID Controller OK 0x0000FC00-0x0000FC0F VIA Bus Master IDE Controller OK 0x000001F0-0x000001F7 Primary IDE Channel OK 0x000003F6-0x000003F6 Primary IDE Channel OK 0x00000170-0x00000177 Secondary IDE Channel OK 0x00000376-0x00000376 Secondary IDE Channel OK 0x0000BC00-0x0000BC1F VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller OK 0x0000C000-0x0000C01F VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller OK 0x0000C400-0x0000C41F VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller OK 0x0000CC00-0x0000CC1F VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller OK 0x00000A79-0x00000A79 ISAPNP Read Data Port OK 0x00000279-0x00000279 ISAPNP Read Data Port OK 0x00000274-0x00000277 ISAPNP Read Data Port OK 0x00000020-0x00000021 Programmable interrupt controller OK 0x000000A0-0x000000A1 Programmable interrupt controller OK 0x00000081-0x00000083 Direct memory access controller OK 0x00000087-0x00000087 Direct memory access controller OK 0x00000089-0x0000008B Direct memory access controller OK 0x0000008F-0x0000008F Direct memory access controller OK 0x000000C0-0x000000DF Direct memory access controller OK 0x00000040-0x00000043 System timer OK 0x00000070-0x00000071 System CMOS/real time clock OK 0x00000061-0x00000061 System speaker OK 0x000000F0-0x000000FF Numeric data processor OK 0x000003F0-0x000003F5 Standard floppy disk controller OK 0x000003F7-0x000003F7 Standard floppy disk controller OK 0x00000378-0x0000037F ECP Printer Port (LPT1) OK 0x00000778-0x0000077B ECP Printer Port (LPT1) OK 0x00000010-0x0000001F Motherboard resources OK 0x00000022-0x0000003F Motherboard resources OK 0x00000044-0x0000005F Motherboard resources OK 0x00000062-0x00000063 Motherboard resources OK 0x00000065-0x0000006F Motherboard resources OK 0x00000072-0x0000007F Motherboard resources OK 0x00000080-0x00000080 Motherboard resources OK 0x00000084-0x00000086 Motherboard resources OK 0x00000088-0x00000088 Motherboard resources OK 0x0000008C-0x0000008E Motherboard resources OK 0x00000090-0x0000009F Motherboard resources OK 0x000000A2-0x000000BF Motherboard resources OK 0x000000E0-0x000000EF Motherboard resources OK 0x00000295-0x00000296 Motherboard resources OK 0x000003E0-0x000003E7 Motherboard resources OK 0x000004D0-0x000004D1 Motherboard resources OK 0x00000800-0x0000087F Motherboard resources OK 0x00000400-0x0000041F Motherboard resources OK 0x00000060-0x00000060 Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard OK 0x00000064-0x00000064 Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard OK 0x000003F8-0x000003FF Communications Port (COM1) OK 0x0000C800-0x0000C8FF C-Media AC97 Audio Device OK 0x0000D000-0x0000D0FF HSP56 MR (VIA) OK 0x0000D400-0x0000D4FF VIA Rhine II Fast Ethernet Adapter OK [iRQs]Resource Device Status IRQ 9 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK IRQ 17 NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 OK IRQ 20 VIA SATA RAID Controller OK IRQ 14 Primary IDE Channel OK IRQ 15 Secondary IDE Channel OK IRQ 21 VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller OK IRQ 21 VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller OK IRQ 21 VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller OK IRQ 21 VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller OK IRQ 21 VIA USB Enhanced Host Controller OK IRQ 0 System timer OK IRQ 8 System CMOS/real time clock OK IRQ 13 Numeric data processor OK IRQ 6 Standard floppy disk controller OK IRQ 1 Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard OK IRQ 12 Microsoft PS/2 Mouse OK IRQ 4 Communications Port (COM1) OK IRQ 22 C-Media AC97 Audio Device OK IRQ 22 HSP56 MR (VIA) OK IRQ 23 VIA Rhine II Fast Ethernet Adapter OK [Memory]Resource Device Status 0xA0000-0xBFFFF PCI bus OK 0xA0000-0xBFFFF NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 OK 0xC0000-0xDFFFF PCI bus OK 0x20000000-0xFFFFFFFF PCI bus OK 0xFD000000-0xFDFFFFFF NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 OK 0xF0000000-0xF7FFFFFF NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 OK 0xFEBDF800-0xFEBDF8FF VIA USB Enhanced Host Controller OK 0xFFF80000-0xFFFFFFFF Motherboard resources OK 0xFEC00000-0xFEC00FFF Motherboard resources OK 0xFEE00000-0xFEE00FFF Motherboard resources OK 0xFEBDFC00-0xFEBDFCFF VIA Rhine II Fast Ethernet Adapter OK 0x0000-0x9FFFF System board OK 0xE0000-0xFFFFF System board OK 0x100000-0x1FFFFFFF System board OK [Components][Multimedia][Audio Codecs]CODEC Manufacturer Description Status File Version Size Creation Date c:windowssystem32iac25_32.ax Intel Corporation Indeo

What is the Microsoft Crash Analysis? Never have seen that. Do you mean the Event Recorder? Regards, Bob.

When it sends a report to microsoft on the crash, if you select to see more information, it sends you to a webpage athat says that cmedia.sys is the problem, and that microsoft has no more information. I don't even have a cmedia.sys file, but I tried disabling the sound anyway. No dice.

"the screen went black, and the computer re started"Hello,I call this a 'spontaneous reboot'. While it's possible they can be caused by driver problems/conflicts, they are much more often caused by a hardware problem. Spontaneous reboots are a symptom of a pretty serious problem and FSX is almost certainly not the actual reason for your problem, it's only triggering the full blown effect of the problem your computer system is suffering from. There are numerous possible reasons to cause a computer system to spontaneously reboot and I all can offer is a little guide I made on trying to troubleshoot hardware problems. It's pretty rudimentary since it doesn't involve testing components with electronic testing equipment, but after reading it your are welcome to try using it if you think it might help you gain any insight into your problem. Of course there are some things you can't try out without getting a new component, such as a new PSU.If you discover the cause of your spontaneous reboot I would like to hear what was causing it!Good Luck,JimHere is a write-up I made that I will post in case it might be of any help... The first part is simply a reply I made to someone on another forum that got me started on making this troubleshooting guide.**********************************So, it sounds like what your computer did was 'reboot'? Right? Also known as a 'Spontaneous Reboot'. I say this because you say..."When the computer restored, the message, 'Your computer has recovered from a serious problem'; appeared."This means that the Game didn't crash, it means the Operating System(OS) crashed. So it is more serious than a bug in the game. The crashing of the OS was only prompted by the use of a resource intensive piece of software(the game). It was not caused by the game software alone and all by itself.The System is made up of a lot of things, Software(the OS being a large part of that), some low-level software called Device Drivers, and Hardware.And the point I want to drive at is that a Spontaneous Reboot is almost always the symptom of a more deeply rooted problem in your System than just some bug in a game's software/code. It could be a Device Driver problem, a problem with poor RAM in your system, or possibly a loose connection somewhere. OR, most likely an Overheating problem. The problem you have described is usually the sign of too much heat building up in a system.Note: Device drivers are just software too, but they are given access to a lower level privilege, called kernel or system level privilege, within the OS than normal programs/games are(user level). Device drivers interact closely with the OS and have no restriction on where they can go or what they can do.Computer Systems are one of the most complex devices made by humankind. Anyway, without futher ado...---------------------------------------------I thought I'd list some possible reasons behind the cause of system problems/instability.1) chkdsk - A simple 'chkdsk' on a command prompt to make sure there are no filesystem problems that need fixing. WinXP usually handles this automatically when you reboot after it has detected an error in the filesystem. But ya never know, so just to be sure you might want to run a chkdsk.2) DxDiag - You could run DxDiag, run through all the tests and then see if it's reporting any problems. You can also try turning down the 'Hardware Acceleration' slider on the Sound tab and see if that cures your problem. Click the 'Save All Information' button(on the very first 'Tab' that DxDiag displays when you start it) and save the text file somewhere. Open up the text file and then copy and paste it's contents on the forum here for people to look at. You'd be surprised the number of times problems have been solved by doing this.3) If you have Dr. Watson enabled(enabled by default on WinXP) then look at it's log file and open it up with Wordpad. First, click [ Start --> Run --> drwtsn32 --> press Enter --> look at 'Log File Path' at the very top ]. Go to where that log file is stored on your hard drive and then open it up with Wordpad. It might be helpful if you post the details contained in it concerning the crash. Although, this suggestion does not lead to a cure for problems as often as posting the 'DxDiag' information and is usually only helpful to a Developer.4) Mods - Some Unofficial modifications to an application can sometimes cause instability. Make sure you are running an unmodified installation of the software before seeking help with problems.5) PSU. A cheap or faulty PSU(Power Supply Unit, or just 'Power Supply') can cause system instability. Or, one that is not neccessarily faulty, but does not supply the system with enough Power(juice, hehe). Your PSU must have a high enough power rating to supply all your components with enough juice. If you have quite a number of PCI addon cards, hard drives, optical drives and other types of hardware attached that draw power then the PSU must be up to the task. Newer Video Cards require quite a bit of power compared to ones from the old days. The Power Supply is one of the more underrated components in a PC. The Power Supply is actually pretty darned important.6) Loose PCI Cards - PCI Cards that are not firmly in their slot. If a PCI card is even just slightly loose it can cause problems. You might want to turn off your computer and then open up your case and pull each card out and then stick it back in. Sometimes you can't tell just by looking.7) Overheating - If your system's CPU or Northbridge chip is getting too hot then you will have system instablities that rear their ugly head when you run resource intensive applications(such as games). You might be able to determine this by taking off the side cover of your PC, and then get a fan and point it so that it is blowing right into the inside of your system.8) IRQ Sharing conflicts - Some PCI slots share IRQ's(Interrupt Requests) with each other. You can usually find this information in the manual for your motherboard. Some PCI addon cards are capable of handling this. Some are not. For instance, IIRC one of the PCI slots in my machine shares an IRQ with the AGP slot(which is where my video card is). SO, I made sure that my Sound Card is not in the PCI slot that shares the IRQ with the AGP slot. In fact, I made sure to not put anything in the PCI slot that shares the IRQ with the AGP slot. Also, if you have an addon (PCI Slot) sound card and also have a sound card built into your motherboard(onboard sound), it is possible the two are conflicting. You may need to go into your BIOS and disable the onboard sound.9) Drivers - You should make sure you have the latest BIOS for your motherboard, the latest Chipset drivers for you motherboard, the latest Sound Card driver, the latest driver for your Network Interface Card(NIC), the latest driver for your Mouse, the latest driver for your Monitor. If there is a driver for your mouse and/or monitor that is. My monitor has a driver that came as a .inf file. There's probably other hardware you have that require device drivers too. Make sure you have the lastest device drivers installed for all your hardware. Note: When it comes to Video Card drivers the latest one is not neccessarily the best one.10) Motherboard - Hopefully this is not the problem, but, there is the possibility that you have a defective motherboard.11) RAM - You could possibly have a bad stick of RAM. Or your RAM could be just plain unstable due to improper settings in the BIOS. Settings such as CAS/RAS and/or other RAM timing settings that are set to aggressively, or an incorrect vDimm setting. That is, if your BIOS allows you to adjust these settings. You can download and run 'memtest86+'(www.memtest.org) to check your RAM. You need to let it run for a considerable amount of time though to see if it encounters any errors. The following is a little story I have about a situation I had with some RAM.--------------------------------------I put my system together and purchased some Mushkin Low Latency RAM(Special 2-2-2) made from Winbond BH-6 chips. You had to bump up the vDimm voltage(amount of voltage supplied to the ram modules) in your BIOS to 2.65v in order to use this memory. I had two 512 MB sticks of this RAM so I could run in Dual Channel mode. Well, one of those first two sticks was bad right off the bat. Fortunately for me, Muskin's main office is in the city I live in. So I took it down there and they exchanged it for me. They had run 'memtest86+' on the new stick and said it checked out ok. When I put it in my system I had 'Fast Boot' disabled in my BIOS and it checked out fine. Disabling the 'Fast Boot' option in your BIOS causes your system to run a check on the RAM, not as thorough of a check as a utlity such as memtest86+ does on it though. Everything was fine, it seemed. Well, the problem for me was I would be playing a BF1942 mod called 'Forgotten Hope' and eventually my game would either crash with an error(this would happen a number of times throughout the day), or I would get a loud digital screeching sound, the screen would go black, my hard drive would go thunk, and then my system would spontaneously reboot(happened once or twice a day). This is not the only game that would crash after some time with an error message either. Also, on a somewhat rare occasion I would have a subtle error occur when I booted up WinXP. I would get a message that said, 'One of the system registry files is corrupt and had to be recovered from a backup copy. The recovery was successful.'It took some months before I really started having these problems. But they did happen and started to happen more and more frequently over time. And I lived with them for some time after they started happening(because I could use my computer for hours until the problem occured). I finally got fed up enough to where I started trying to think about what the problem could be. Eventually, for reasons hard to explain, I came to the conclusion that something was getting hosed up in memory. So I went into my BIOS and disabled the 'Fast Bootup' option. Again, when this is disabled it runs a test on your RAM. The test of my RAM got as far as 470 MB's at which point it encountered a R/W(read/write) error.Well, my Mushkin RAM had a lifetime warranty on it. So I called them up and the fellow explained that the Winbond BH-6 stuff I had was a hit or miss proposition(yeah, pretty much miss I thought to myself, lol). He told me that they now had some modules that are made from a different process than the old BH-6 stuff, is very stable, doesn't require a bump in the vDimm voltage, and it has the Low-Latency memory timing capability(CAS/RAS 2-2-2). And that they would give me the newer stuff in exchange for the old Winbond BH-6 modules I currently had, since they were bad. After the exchange for the newer and better stuff, I have had 100 percent rock solid stability.--------------------------------------12) Some piece of hardware in your system, your video card for instance, may not have fully failed yet but may be starting to go on the fritz.13) A somewhat remote possibility but nevertheless a possibility is the your CPU is not quite seated properly in it's socket and needs to be reseated.14) You have 'Fast Writes' enabled for your video card and it is causing system instabilities.It's hard to know if your problem is a driver problem or any of the things I mention above at all. It could be something else altogether, like a BIOS setting or some other configuration problem.

I'm having the same issue when I switch to tower view. Computer just resets itself. No error messages, no nothing.Did you fix it?Kael

I am having the same problem as well, my system is older 2.1 GHz and 1.0 GB RAM and I think switching in views is caused by not enough RAM.

Thanks for that post Jim.Great info.I have random boot once a week. I think..its cause I changed the latency numbers on my memory and I am yet to run memtest on it... Bad Bad Bad!:(You just reminded me that I ought to do it. or I leave it at the default values.Boy! FSX makes you do all kinds of things to squeeze a few more FPS. On the positive side.. You have no idea how much I have learnt about PC Building, OCing and troubleshooting on the account of FSX.:)MannyPS: Your post is a keeper...good to be a sticky.

>I am having the same problem as well, my system is older 2.1>GHz and 1.0 GB RAM and I think switching in views is caused by>not enough RAM.>>Yeah I don't think its about not having enough RAM. I've got 2gig here. I did some testing with it and only happens when switching to tower view.I saved a flight that was out in the middle of nowhere, a long way from towers (where it seems to happen most). At one point, I was in tower view when all of a sudden the tower changed (to another closer airport I guess) and then it crashed. It doesn't seem to happen in populated areas so I'm thinking its got to do with viewing the aircraft from such a long way away or something.Anybody else?

Mine was also doing this. I have a radeon x300 and was using the omega drivers. I switched to the ATI catalyst driver and I no longer have this problem. Maybe you could try updating graphic card drivers and see if it helps.

>Mine was also doing this. I have a radeon x300 and was using>the omega drivers. I switched to the ATI catalyst driver and I>no longer have this problem. Maybe you could try updating>graphic card drivers and see if it helps.Thanks for the tip, but unfortunatly I tried that too. I've got a 7800GT. was using the 93.?? drivers from Nvidia and was getting the problem so I re-installed the 91.47 drivers which I had used flawlessly for ages with FS9. Same problems. I beleive it has something to do with being a long distance from the tower. Does anybody know how you can get rid of tower view when switching thru categorys?Cheers,Kael