1 hour ago, psolk said:

And was that with 16, 32 or 64, what was the DIMM configuration, ie 2 full, all 4 full and was all the memory purchased and installed together.

The reason I ask is I had 32 with no issues, 2 slots full.  Then I added 32 of the EXACT same memory and filled all 4 slots and had tons of issues and had to back out my timings.  I then went to 64GB in two 32GB sticks and no issues at all and I was  able to go back to my original timings.  There are a lot of variables with memory... 

I don't know the reason  ut years ago NickN told me that many mobo's would have problems if all mem slots were full. Since he used to consult with Asus on their Bios, I assume it is bios related. You just might have one of those mobos's.

I used to overclock my systems and performed extensive testing (mostly via Prime95) to ensure they were stable. One thing I've learned: It can take days of running a stress test before a system will error or crash. I used to test an overclock for 48 hours and bumped it up to 60 hours after a test failed during the 47th hour. It's likely your machine was on the test bench running through stress tests for many hours in order for the tech to pinpoint the memory issue.

Today, many "enthusiasts" will argue that running Prime95 for hours on end is unnecessary. "Boot stable" vs "Prime95 stable" has somehow become a benchmark for overclocking stability. Folks go as far as saying too much stress testing will damage a system. Sure, maybe in the era of Intel CPUs with microcode voltage issues there is a bit of truth to that. But the fact is, you should be able to run any system at 100% utilization for its usable life with no errors as long as it's properly cooled. Plenty of workloads require these types of utilization, but they're typically run on workstation or server-class hardware with error correcting memory.

MSFS is the rare consumer product that can make heavy use of all hardware in a machine.

4 hours ago, Funky D said:

I used to overclock my systems and performed extensive testing (mostly via Prime95) to ensure they were stable. One thing I've learned: It can take days of running a stress test before a system will error or crash. I used to test an overclock for 48 hours and bumped it up to 60 hours after a test failed during the 47th hour. It's likely your machine was on the test bench running through stress tests for many hours in order for the tech to pinpoint the memory issue.

Today, many "enthusiasts" will argue that running Prime95 for hours on end is unnecessary. "Boot stable" vs "Prime95 stable" has somehow become a benchmark for overclocking stability. Folks go as far as saying too much stress testing will damage a system. Sure, maybe in the era of Intel CPUs with microcode voltage issues there is a bit of truth to that. But the fact is, you should be able to run any system at 100% utilization for its usable life with no errors as long as it's properly cooled. Plenty of workloads require these types of utilization, but they're typically run on workstation or server-class hardware with error correcting memory.

MSFS is the rare consumer product that can make heavy use of all hardware in a machine.

Agreed! But I have had overclocks pass longPrime95 run and immediately fail using OCCT. Mainly because P95 tests the stability of the CPU whereas OCCT , like flight sims, tests the interaction of the parts in the overclock. For me, P95 was the best first pass clock test, then OCCT for flightsim "testing".

More than one cause for CTD's and computer freezes in msfs. Using the new DLSS4 Nvidia display driver 572.16 is one cause as it introduced these symptoms for lots of users. 572.24 is the hotfix Nvidia rushed out to fix this issue in games.

Edited February 7, 20251 yr by Fielder

38 minutes ago, vgbaron said:

Agreed! But I have had overclocks pass longPrime95 run and immediately fail using OCCT. Mainly because P95 tests the stability of the CPU whereas OCCT , like flight sims, tests the interaction of the parts in the overclock. For me, P95 was the best first pass clock test, then OCCT for flightsim "testing".

Very good points! I always used a variety of tests and sometimes ran 3D benchmarks alongside CPU tests to really stress a system. Prime95 is just what I settled on for my final extended "burn-in" testing. The main point is if you're having issues and expect a hardware problem, letting a test run overnight gives you a much better indication of stability vs. doing only a single pass.

Probably also worth mentioning to have a temperature monitoring utility running during testing to make sure you won't wake up to a melted computer! It's not uncommon for these tests to take a CPU/GPU to its thermal limit if you're using anything less than exotic cooling, but other system components such as the SSD, chipset, and other motherboard temp sensors should be a lot cooler than the CPU/GPU (anything above ~60C is usually hotter than it should be). You can get a good indication of thermal performance pretty quickly.

Maybe the last thing to mention are those thermal limits... CPUs and GPUs will throttle if they hit the limit, but they won't get damaged like processors did 20 years ago. If they did, pretty much every cheap OEM machine from Dell would be on fire, as they rely on thermal limiting to get away with cheap, insufficient coolers.

So if you don't overclock, what is a good software to stress test your system? Free is preferable, but if it's not free, under $40 USD is acceptable for me. Would Prime95 be one of the best software to stress test your system?

15 hours ago, Bobsk8 said:

So, another reason to avoid 2024, unless  you want to replace your PC, which most likely runs  2020 with no problems.  The issue that was a warning flag for me is their suggestion of installing 64GB of ram... Most AAA games work with 32 GBs of ram perfectly well. 

Yes Bob, excellent advice......  A good reason to avoid MSFS2024 is because @abrams_tank got himself some defective RAM sticks 🤔😏. ...........

Edited February 8, 20251 yr by KL Oo

A long time ago (so long ago I had forgotten I had done it) I used the inbuilt Nvidia tool to overclock my RTX3080 and it was running 2000 with no issues.  However, 2024 found it out and after trying to work out what was wrong, I had to revert to stock settings.  32 GB sysem RAM seems to be OK though.

2024 is working the GPU a lot harder though, so I'm planning on an upgrade to an RTX4080 very soon.

2024 uses a lot more RAM tahn 2020, though 2020 seemed just as hard on VRAM as 2024, though I do use a lot of addons.

I also turned off hyperthreading in 2020 but have turned it back on again for 2024.

I could run 2020 pretty much maxed out on ultra settings and DLAA with autoFPS and the framegen mod, but in 2024 I am struggling to use high settings and ned to use DLSS performance now.

In 2020 framerates were pretty consistent, but in 2024 framerates jump about quite a lot more. I can have a perfectly acceptable performance at one airport, then fly somewheer else quite happily, then go back to the original airport I was flying at and only get half the framerates I was a few miutes earlier - that's quite hard to get my head around.

3 hours ago, KL Oo said:

Yes Bob, excellent advice......  A good reason to avoid MSFS2024 is because @abrams_tank got himself some defective RAM sticks 🤔😏. ...........

Haha, that's true 🤣.  Actually, I'm thankful that MSFS 2024 inadvertently discovered the defective RAM for me, because I was still within the warranty period, so the computer shop exchanged my RAM and didn't charge me.  I think the computer shop said my graphics card only had a few months left in the warranty period, so if the graphics card was the problem, I needed them to detect the problem, while I was still covered under warranty.

Edited February 8, 20251 yr by abrams_tank

11 hours ago, abrams_tank said:

Haha, that's true 🤣.  Actually, I'm thankful that MSFS 2024 inadvertently discovered the defective RAM for me, because I was still within the warranty period, so the computer shop exchanged my RAM and didn't charge me.  I think the computer shop said my graphics card only had a few months left in the warranty period, so if the graphics card was the problem, I needed them to detect the problem, while I was still covered under warranty.

Maybe Bob will come out and recommend everybody get MSFS2024 as a diagnostic tool for RAM 🙂

On 2/8/2025 at 11:00 AM, abrams_tank said:

Haha, that's true 🤣.  Actually, I'm thankful that MSFS 2024 inadvertently discovered the defective RAM for me, because I was still within the warranty period, so the computer shop exchanged my RAM and didn't charge me.  I think the computer shop said my graphics card only had a few months left in the warranty period, so if the graphics card was the problem, I needed them to detect the problem, while I was still covered under warranty.

It's highly likely to be a RAM issue rather than a defective GPU imo. I spent nearly 30 years in IT, mostly on the hardware side of things before moving on and ultimately out of the industry all together.

I've also changed a fair amount of mobos in my time - mostly laptops I would say - so I wouldn't discount your system board.

Tell me, did you ever get any POST failure beeps on pwr up? Without that it will be a process of elimination.

With regards to msfs2024 picking up the issue, perhaps it was the way it was addressing your ram which is why it failed here and not when using another game/app.

Prime95 has been mentioned here, that is a CPU diags tool really, but it can be used to test ram. 

On 2/7/2025 at 4:25 PM, psolk said:

And was that with 16, 32 or 64, what was the DIMM configuration, ie 2 full, all 4 full and was all the memory purchased and installed together.

The reason I ask is I had 32 with no issues, 2 slots full.  Then I added 32 of the EXACT same memory and filled all 4 slots and had tons of issues and had to back out my timings.  There are a lot of variables with memory... 

I did that too.  It ended with a complete reload of windows with no option to save files...

14 hours ago, hanhamreds said:

It's highly likely to be a RAM issue rather than a defective GPU imo. I spent nearly 30 years in IT, mostly on the hardware side of things before moving on and ultimately out of the industry all together.

I am using an Asus RTX 3060 Ti.  I was heavily pointing in the direction that it was a GPU issue because what I did was I used ASUS GPU Tweak to lower the power of my RTX 3060 Ti, then I set a maximum FPS in NVidia control panel of 30 FPS, and then I even lowered some of the graphics settings in MSFS 2024.  By doing so, I was able to get MSFS 2024 to run stable again and stop CTDing, and stop my monitor's screen from going black.  So I figured it had to be GPU related because I just made a bunch of changes and settings that were GPU related.

Turns out I was wrong, I guess.  My current theory is that by lowering the GPU power and lowering the graphics settings, I likely also reduced the stress on the RAM as well, so that's why my computer became more stable when using MSFS 2024. 

14 hours ago, hanhamreds said:

Tell me, did you ever get any POST failure beeps on pwr up? Without that it will be a process of elimination.

With regards to msfs2024 picking up the issue, perhaps it was the way it was addressing your ram which is why it failed here and not when using another game/app.

Prime95 has been mentioned here, that is a CPU diags tool really, but it can be used to test ram. 

I am using a desktop computer.  No, I don't think I heard any POST failure beeps on power up.  Once my monitor went black and I couldn't get back into Windows, if I rebooted the computer, it would reboot normally.

One thing I did have a problem with was that I was watching Twitch on Chrome and my computer's monitor also went black and I couldn't get back in.  That happened infrequently, like maybe once every two to three weeks, and I watch Twitch daily on my computer.  I could never resolve that problem, so I switched to Firefox to watch Twitch.  Oddly enough, the problem with my monitor going black and not being able to get back into Windows disappeared after I used Firefox to watch Twitch, and I generally didn't encounter the problem of my monitor going black until MSFS 2024.  I also assumed that my graphics card was the problem because from my understanding, while watching Twitch and Youtube videos, the graphics card is also doing work.  But in hindsight, knowing I had defective RAM, it was probably my RAM that caused this.

 

14 hours ago, hanhamreds said:

Prime95 has been mentioned here, that is a CPU diags tool really, but it can be used to test ram. 

Thanks. If Prime95 is a good tool to stress test your computer, I may use that in the future.