I had the freezing issue immediately after purchasing the 777 - of the exact nature described above. What made it worse is that upon installing the 777, everything else started freezing - without fail - on every flight too. The NGX and 747 both did exactly the same thing. Sadly, my PC never seems to recover from the freezes - it hangs until I hit CTRL/ALT/DELETE. I have repeatedly tested different things to try and resolve it (some at the suggestion of PMDG support) - to no avail. Despite googling to see if anyone else had similar issues, I had no luck finding anything - until yesterday when I found this thread.
Sadly, that was too late. As FSX has been unusable in the past 9 weeks since buying the 777, I sought help from PMDG in late September. I was advised it was a hardware issue. I was recommended to replace my graphics card. Quite apart from the 777 issues, my PC has been a disappointment, so I bit the bullet and, rather than just upgrading the graphics card, I have invested in a whole new custom build PC. That was my choice, and I do not hold PMDG to account for that. However, whilst I'll be pleased with it, and I anticipate a vast improvement in performance, the thread above confirms two things: (1) it never was a hardware issue; and (2) my custom build PC may not run it either. Both of these are painful to deal with, as my pocket is still burning from purchasing a new PC. Oh - and the 777 cost $90 too, so that hurts too!
However, the question is: what do I do with my new PC? Install it and take the risk it will screw up everything else again, or leave it and return to the more stable and reliable NGX and 737 - notwithstanding I've waited all year to try out the 777? It's certainly been a huge disappointment so far - so much expectation, and so far I can't get the thing to fly more than an hour. As others on this thread have commented - yes, I dearly want to fly it. But it just gets boring and deeply frustrating when you know no flight will ever survive (well, unless you do something like KJFK to KEWR, which is hardly the point of the 777-200LR...)
