sometimes FSX is a puzzle

[Paul Anderson]

Yesterday started FSX and decided to change planes before takeoff.
(at a default airport, to an Alabeo plane and repaint never had problems with before)
Whole system crashed and got a blue screen showing it was dumping things into a log file (don't know where or for who to decipher).
Powered off, restarted, and repeated 2 more times, same result.
Was starting to believe could be a corrupted dds file or maybe bad ram.
Decided to forget about it and have a couple beer watching tv.
Today I changed airports before changing to same plane/livery, no problem.
If you worry too much about it, you might scratch your head until it crashes also.

[adi518]

That's not fsx's fault. It's either a driver fault you're having or some hardware issue, that's when a wild blue screen appears.

FSX is indeed a puzzle, but it does not cause any blue screens... if it didn't work one day, then the other day it did, then your hardware is messing with you. You should run memtest, hdd diagnostics and cancel any overclocks etc' in order to find the culprit. If you can, also post the crash report (the one that appears after the restart from the blue screen). A buddy of mine is working for Microsoft and he specializes in blue screen errors so I can send him the report for analyze and most probably point you to the culprit.

My current hunch is a faulty HDD, that's unless you're running an SSD. Anyway, if it bluescreened once, it is likely to bluescreen again.

[b52bob]

Sometimes.....?

[Naismith]

No FSX is flakey is ways that its elder sibling is not.

[Firekitten]

Fsx may be the equivalent of a flakey near permanent risk of mental break down art geek indie kid, but its 'elder sibling' is past its prime and sitting in the corner dribbling into its bucket trying to remember its own name.

[Dev One]

Like Me?
Although FSX can be a nice thing to fly in if one has superb modelling like the Navion, I find it less stable than the dribbling idiot. I have occasional problems with black screen interruptions & automatic restarts - recently when switching from full screen mode to windowed in order to close the flight. I have changed my PSU which helped previous cuts suffered in FS9 & Gmax, but it does look as if there is a power problem within my GT630 - at least thats my analysis!
err.... I think I'm Keith!

[Dangerousdave26]

When Windows goes into the BSOD (Blue screen of death) it dumps the system memory to file on the hard drive.

It will be a {somename}.dmp. They can get rather large at times.

The BSOD can be caused by a lot of things but one thing you must recognize. Any time a BSOD happens maybe the last time your PC ever runs.

My suggestion is if you do not have external storage go out and buy it now. Copy off to your external drive your whole FSX folder and any other files that might be important to you.

Backup now before it is too late.

[Paul Anderson]

After changing airport before plane, no problem.
Restarted computer several times in next day or two before running FSX.
Got me curious, could there be a corrupt dds or bmp?
Ran CHKDSK on my FSX drive and when restarted said was recovering from a critical error.
No problems after that, but did not go back to original airport (forget what it was).
Hopefully out of trouble now.

[Butcherbird17]

Paul, are you by chance running a nvidia card (GTX460 or 560) with 331.65 drivers? If so roll back your drivers to 314.22
version. They are the most stable versions for these cards. I installed the 331.65 drivers a week ago and after 2 days of running fine, I started getting BSOD's. It turns out it was the nvidia driver that was causing it. If you check the minidump files located
at C:/Windows/Minidump folder and use BlueScreenView to open them you'll be able to find the culprit.
You can get BSV here: http://www.nirsoft.net
Hope this helps.

Joe

[Paul Anderson]

Thanks for the tip, running GT430 with 327.23 driver.
Will revert to older driver if happens again.

[Paul Anderson]

Thanks for the tip, running GT430 with 327.23 driver.
Will revert to older driver if happens again.

Happened again today, Bluescreenview says cause was Realtek audio driver (RtkHDAud.sys).
Was resuming flight with Alabeo WACO_YMF5 aircraft (think that was the plane involved in first BSOD).
No update to the sound driver was found.

Will try NVIDIA version 314.22 as you suggested and see if things play nicely together (from time span between occurences could be awhile before any conclusion can be made).

Edit: Windows sound driver update didn't find anything, but in case was looking for Asus motherboard driver looked for Realtek drivers on line - found Nov 13 update.
Will try that for awhile to see if any problems before Nvidia 314.22 update.

Edit 2:
Tried 314.22 - bsod, newer try 331.82 - bsod. (again points to Realtek)

Starting to think there is something incompatible with Waco sounds and my sound system, or there is something bad in the sound card.
Changing plane to another has no problem at same airport before I get going.
(maybe I should look at if any sounds generated at airport are the culprit in conjunction with aircraft)

Any thoughts?

[Paul Anderson]

Tried an older and a newer NVIDIA version, same Realtek BSOD, reverted to 327.23.
Did some googling and saw some people had problems with Realtek and Nvidia HD drivers, so reinstalled Nvidia once again without HD audio drivers.
Windows loaded it's older NV HD audio drivers, guess there may be no escaping that.
In FSX sound adjustment option I changed sound devices from default to Realtek.
Did not get the crash after that, but that doesn't mean much because I had created a new default flight with a different plane so I could get on with things.

If happens again, will try going into device manager and disabling the 4 NV HD audio drivers.

[Paul Anderson]

Disabled NV HD audio drivers, after awhile another BSOD pointing to Realtek.
Disabled AccuFeel for the Waco in case injected sounds were the problem, again after awhile BSOD.
Down to a few possibilties:
Waco sounds corrupt/incompatible or there is a problem with the Realtek device.
Funny only happens with the Waco.
Will copy Waco sound folder from backup drive, then see what happens.
If fails again will try reinstall.
If fails again will try redownload and install.
If fails again will likely be left with Realtek device and take computer to shop.
Perhaps enabling my old Creative Lab SB sound card device and switching to it might prove a point (only kept it for the game port for my old MS joystick).
Guessing nobody else has this setup or problem.

[Paul Anderson]

Giving up on this line of persuit - stymied, just one of those fsx/system things.
Updated FTX Global and library objects just in case - Waco kills system, but only at some places.
Restored downloaded aircraft, flew around Switzerland in Waco for about an hour, no problem.
Repositioned to Ant's Boonah airport, died soon as changed view.
Re-downloaded and installed Boonah again (also have OZX scenery as well as Ant's), same story.
Repositioned to Ayer's Rock and cruised the area (there are some good replacments for the rock, and the rocks west(?) of there), no problem.
This isn't saying there is something in OZX or Ant's scenery that is a problem, have had same crashes at a few stock airports in North America.
Darnded if I know, but if BSOD happens I'll just switch airplanes or airports on restart.
Special thanks to Butcherbird 17 for the BlueScreenView link to keep me from barking up the wrong trees without a paddle to stand on.