Illegitimi non carborundum

ega To do this properly we would need to see the dmp file created by the BSOD and the results verified by WinDBG, DumpCHK, and BlueScreenView. However you could try a RAM test to see if it is a faulty RAM stick. (use this as a start: http://www.c-sharpco...l-in-windows-8/) I would also be checking the nvidia driver via nvidia support as that can cause BSODs: http://www.nvidia.co...ge/support.html Look at using something like DART : http://technet.micro...s/hh826071.aspx (complicated but effective). There may be other and better suggestions. Regards pH

Chris Just a thought a 650w psu is on the "light" side for a 680 - I use an 800w (Gold) just to give me the leeway in gaming etc. Just something to consider pH

Unless there is a reset button in the psu it sounds like from your testing that it does not work anymore. You could always put a meter across the the 2 terminals as above and see if there is any current/voltage, etc. I lost a psu recently in a "brown out" even though it was connected via a surge protection device but in this instance you could smell the cooked electronics. Is there any warranty/guarantee with your surge protector - you might be able to claim for your psu via them. Can you get it checked by a competenet electrician/electronics, does another psu work and so on. Return to Corsair as faulty? Regards pH

Dougal In practice you cannot alter the VAS in any shape or form. It is a set of dynamic virtual addresses set up by the OS - fresh each time (Nothing to do with Physical RAM or the paging file) to load a program like FSX so that if FSX becomes damaged or corrupt it does not bring down the whole OS. It also serves as a repository for the code that will be passed to the cpu/cache/ram/gpu as called. For a 32-bit app with Large address aware set running in a 64-bit OS it has a maximum value of 4GB, (but for example X-Plane 64-bit can address 8 terabytes of VAS), Even as little as 1MB fragmented at the wrong address can reult in a Windows OOM error. It can be monitored with VMMap and that is is very interesting to see what happens to the VAS whilst FSX plus add-ons are running. I did some experiments with a windows server registry hack called "HeapDecommitFreeBlockThreshold" and got that to work in a 32-bit OS but I could not find the correct parameter for a 64-bit OS. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315407 WRT FSX the VAS is small and complex and the best solution IMHO is a 64-bit app in a 64-bit OS. Regards pH

This was recommended on one site (only carry out if you understand the registry) Reboot into Safe Mode, run RegEdit, delete HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Shell then recreate the Shell key as a REG_SZ key, with the value explorer.exe if that works then it was a problem with explorer if not - not sure. (From: http://social.techne...ff-c89b3cf45e82 - post by Brian Grunkemeyer ) Might be worth a look: http://www.prevx.com...sta-and-XP.html Regards PH

An excellemt question: This is the reason that you only put a nominal amount on your C: or system drive: and from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314482 With large amounts of RAM being installed these days the need for huge paging files has long gone unless you want to save a log/debug file for later analysis but who has ever done that. I suspect that the advice about the larger PF on a separate HDD to FSX refers to a standard disk HDD but now you have 2 SSD's both of which ill be the best disk for the PF. Microsoft now recommend the PF be installed on a SSD for max performance as there are more reads than writes if a PF is used and it does not affect SSD performance. In my rig I have set the PF on my C: drive SSD and have set it to 1GB above the Peak Commit charge which works out at 3072 MB so I set a min/max of 3072 and it works fine. Regards pH

Arjen I'm not sure if this would work as you would have to match your present 3 cable outputs to those on the new sound card. To connect you would need a Stereo 3.5mm Mini Jack (Female) to 1 RCA (Male) Cable (if such a thing exists) as its usually 1 stereo minijack to 2 RCA outputs. ( or 3 x 3.5mm to 3.5 mm stereo joiners/couplers (female to female) and use a 3.5mm Male Mini Jack to 1 or 2 RCA cables. But the speakers may still not work as they should. May be time for new speakers?? Regards pH

I've also had this issue once with this driver - I reinstalled it and the problem disappeared and I have since installed the latest beta driver 313.95 and that seems stable without error. In the past I have found that the Windows\system32\drivers\nvlddmkm.sys file to be the issue (usually) and have "fixed" it by extracting the nvlddmkm.sy_ from the latest driver install usually in C:\nvidia\display driver and overwriting the system32 version of nvlddkm.sys. Sometimes it is just an one-off aberration and goes away on its own. pH

Thanks for the feedback. PeterH

Jfri Its all to with RAM type and speed and this a good article to read: http://www.tomshardw...what-difference and http://voices.yahoo....ce-3289088.html. Using the data from http://www.gpureview...1=606&card2=667 The memory bandwith of the GTX260 is 70.4GB/sec whereas fo the GTX 680 its 192.625 GB/sec so although they both be 256 b-it the faster RAM in the 680 makes th difference and a 128-bit card with faster RAM will have a greater memory bandwidth than a 256-bit card with slower VRAM.

Firstly as you rightly say a 4GB card will only be useful if you have a large monitor or several monitors in your set up. Whilst in a 32-bit OS the VRAM will have a significant impact on the Virtual address space, it is different and there is only a very minor impact in a 64-bit OS. Don't forget even running a 32-bit app like FSX the 64-bit OS has a VAS of up to 8 terabytes (FSX is still limited to 4GB) so the impact of the VRAM should be negligible. The VRAM allocation/usage will depend on the instructions sent from the cpu and the amount of screen real estate it has to fill plus the interaction with the cpu and the physical RAM, but with a powerful cpu the impact gain should be slight. IMHO you should be using 2 x 4GB or 2 x 8GB sticks of fast matched RAM for optimal performance, in 2 RAM slots, 6GB may not be optimal in that mobo. Regards pH

I would also suspect a 3GB video card in a 32-bit OS which will impinge drastically on the Process address space for FSX which is 2GB minus some portion of the VRAM or up to 3GB (minus Vram) if you have the /3GB switch set. I'm surprised that you have not experienced OOM errors. Further, I would suspect that at some point there is an interaction between the installed VRAM and the physical RAM so that the system has to use the paging file to keep going - hence the slow down, It would be interesting to know how many hard paging faults you are experiencing. The answer upgrade to a 64-bit OS and possibly increase your physical RAM to 8GB. Regards pH

Noel, I wouldn't worry about it - I myself do not "qualify" for a P3D licence but you may!! Now the good news :lol: X-Plane (ver 10.2) is now available in 64-bit configuration mode so it can handle lost of Physical RAM (16GB at least) but better still up to 8 Terabytes of VAS (8TB for the system/kernel) so very little chance of OOM errors. So perhaps P3D could be made available as a 64-bit app - lets hope so!! Regards pH

YES! that will work fine. Do it all the time. pH

Tom Your psu is right at the bottom end that might work but its going to be tight - personally I'd upgrade to something around 800 - 1000w depending on budget etc, Your new card would work with the driver for your 560 but IMHO its always better when changing cards to reinstall the drivers using the 'clean install" option and do it that way. You may well get away without a reinstall but why risk it when it only takes a few minutes to install the drivers any way. Likewise NVI its just as easy to reconfigure as use your 560 settings, and because the card is more 'powerful' you may want to increase some settings. I would also be inclined to build a new fsx.cfg or make sure you remove references for the 560 from your current cfg file. Choices, choices, pH

Noel I think the major upgrade to P3D will be to later Direct X versions eg 10. I can't seeing them re-writing the code in native 64-bit mode as it would be quite expensive and legacy support could be a nightmare. If you look around there are very few 64-bit games (and software) actually for sale. However, I have photoshop CS5 64-bit and that runs like a dream even with many many images open and it can access severat terabytes of Virtual Address Space (as opposed to the maximum 4GB accesed by FSX SP2/Acc/Gold) so I have never seen an OOM. It sounds like you have a good handle on what's happening and P3D can only get better, so let us hope they give us a licenece for all simmers in the not too distant future. pH

Noel wrt graphics what I was implying is that Win7 handles graphics more efficiently than say Vista (and supposedly Win 8 more than Win 7) but that may not translate into performance or quality in real life. The big advance in graphics came from nvidia and ATI themselves, but that GTX 280 is still a good card IMHO. If you are running an addon weather program or some complex planes/scenery with their own exe/dll files an extra 4GB of RAM can help if your mobo is capable of handling it. But as I say if you are happy with Vista, you may not see a huge gain in "upgrading" to Win 7/8 wrt FSX. If it were me I would wait until the dust settles on Win 8 and we get a better idea on how it is performing game wise and if it is good upgrade to that for about $70 or then make a decision to stay with Vista or upgrade to win 7. Choices, choices! pH

Noel If you are happy with Vista - you may not need to upgrade to Win 7 which in the early days of its release was euphemistically called Vista SP3. At present it would cost me be around $150 - $220 to upgrade to Win 7 (depending on edition, Home, Pro, Ult) but only $40 to upgrade to windows 8 Pro (I am not recommending that, but it does seem crazy that it costs more to upgrade to an older version of Windows than it does to the current one. Win 7 does improve on Vista it utilses certain hardware and software functions better including graphics. But I don't think that you would notice much difference with FSX. I have run Vista 64 since SP1 and I have never had an issue (stability or performance) and likewise with my Windows 7 machines. I guess that it will come down to choice in the long run. I saw no difference in FSX performance when upgrading to Win 7, but it may vary from PC to User. Regards pH

Isn't it counter intuitive to mess with RAM settings on a SB rig. AFAIK the FSB or BCLK in a sandybridge rig is limited to 100 Mhz so altering the RAM settings can cause major issues but may not increase performance significantly and possible the cpu/RAM will run at a higher temperature. Isn't it far better to use the fast RAM but allow the cpu/mobo to use the default timings where possible as the cpu/RAM transfer rate will be unchanged regardless of the RAM settings. I doubt that you would see much performance gain on an i5-2500K moving from 1333Mz RAM to 2100 and there would have been a much better gain moving to an i7-2700K cpu and leaving the RAM alone, but then anything can happen in computing I'm surprised that the OP didn't see an api.dll error which is usually the sign of a "bad" RAM setting. Just my 2c worth. PeterH

Saab340 It could be idiosyncratic or conjecture - but I read somewhere that the 6xx series Keplers were not as powerful wrt a simulation (as opposed to a "game") as the later FERMI cards - who knows? It was just that I found that the 580 seemed to handle dense scenery areas than the 660 ie I got less stuttering and less popping with the 580. I'm about to try a 670 and I'll see if that is any better. I think that everyone will be different and maybe it was wishful thing on my part, perhaps I wanted the 580 to be better!! BTW I still get very good results with my "old" GTX480! I guess that the 660TI might be slightly better than the plain 660 due to the way nvidia choose the chips for the various models. Thanks for your comments. PeterH

James Its all to do with 'tesselation' and nvidia cards are supposedly better at tesselation than ATI so remain the choice of video card for FSX (other games ATI may be better). With a 2600K a GTX580 if you can get one would be good or at least a GTX 670 or 680 if affordable. I run a 2600K at 4.8GHz and I found that a GTX 660 was "throttling" the cpu in certain heavy scenery areas, so I switched back to my GTX 580 and that certainly helped. But like verything to do with FSX it will vary from PC to PCowner. Regards pH

jfri I honestly don't believe that an extra 4GB of RAM will give you improvement in FSX. Where extra RAM is useful is if you have some 3rd party add-ons that have their own executable (.exe) files (I believe that some weather packages and complex airplanes have their own .exe files) and they need physical RAM to load their working set into - Note:FSX can utilise up to 4GB of Physical RAM at any one time, so an extra 4GB can be useful in some circumstances. It is usually important to match the RAM, so if the mobo can take it a better option would be 2 x 4GB matched pairs and if it is an AM2+ board you could find RAM that has a slightly higher speed than you have now. Disregard this ie wrt to RAM speed if you have an AM2 mobo. You may get away with installing 2 x 2Gb with the same specs as you have now, but you could also experience some difficulties if not now but down the track, so to speak. Its a judgement call and RAM is reasonably cheap at present so 2 x 4GB nay be nearly the same price as 2 x 2GB. Good luck pH

DaveH This is physical RAM and/or the paging file (corrupt, fragmented, or not enough) or even a too full HDD. See here: http://answers.micro...89-938f5254a6c3 Regards pH

Lowrunner This may help: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/892610 Regards pH

Mike I agree with Vic try running / installing FSX after a "clean" boot (google for steps for your OS) and then you will know if it is a non-windows app that is causing the issue. Did you install by running as administrator likewise when you start FSX always run as administrator (Find fsx.exe right click properties then compatibility and check always run as administrator. If this is Win & you may want to change the UAC settings as that could an issue. Regards pH