FSX causes OS shut down when clicking Free Flight

Crashes that come 20 minutes into a flight are usually caused by overheating.
Clean the indside of your computer, pay close attention to the fans and to the CPU fan.

Have you checked your gfx card temps?

Also, try running it at real low settings to see if that makes any difference.

Carlitoboy wrote;

When ever I click on Free Flight in the FSX menu my PC shuts down as if i pulled out the plug.

Really You mean the box gets quiet, not even an illuminated power light?

How do you recover, by pressing the power button or cycling the power supply switch?

How does XpPro SP3 restart, blue screen or safe mode?

Without more symptomology I am suspicious of the power supply.
BUT
Have you flash updated the bios on the KN9 Platinum mb ? edit, oh now i see you flashed the bios. if the puter still works you were successful.

A possible but unlikely cause may be bios or ram. Bios is actually what shuts down power supplies in most cases and many power supplies are weak in providing sensitive voltage to finicky ram, which CM2X1024-6400C4 RAM is, C4 means four clock pulses per instruction cycle.

Have you checked mb ram recommended compatibility?

I put the sim in window mode so I can see Core Temp and/or Speedfan in the background, and my temps never go over 45C. The last temps I've seen just before a crash range between 36C and 45C. I have great airflow through the case. In fact, everything runs a degree or two cooler when the case is closed when load testing.

About I had the opportunity to test a BRAND NEW EVGA GeForce 9800 GT Superclocked Video Card (I followed the standard Driver clean steps provided in the evga forum) And I'm having the exact same issue. I popped the 9800 GTX back in and were still at square one. I shall monitor the GPU temps and let you know if the temps ever get out of line.

I have the BIOS successfully flashed with the latest from MSI and I have zero problems with everything else I use on this PC.

To get more descriptive on the shut down... everything goes quite indeed. Fans and drives stop spinning like a complete shut off. However you raise a good question about lights and there is a diff on how I start back up:
1) If I start off with a cold boot (I turn the PSU switch off for 30secs or >) and launch FSX and crash it, it is an OS shut down with no lights. I can press the power button at the front of my PC to start back up.
2) When I start up with the power button just after the crash and launch FSX and crash it again, it's an OS shut down but this time with a slow flashing BLUE power light. At this point hitting the power button does nothing. I have to switch off the PSU for the 30secs to start back up again.

Ram I believe is compatible; I haven't seen anywhere on the net (MSI or CORSAIR, etc) that says otherwise. I've tested memtest86 with manual recommended timings (4-4-4-12) and using auto BIOS settings. each mod passed individually and together in both cases; and FSX crashes in both cases. I'm not a very technical guy - is it a fact that memtest86 may not tell the whole story when testing modules?

Carlitoboy asked;

is it a fact that memtest86 may not tell the whole story when testing modules?

Humm, memtest86 is a good ram tester, I've forgotten where I got, but isn't it available from Corsair?

I keep looking at the power supply, built a system using an Antec 550w NeoPower that would act like this, plus it wouldn't enter S3 sleep mode. The PSU was defective and I've not had the problem since installing an AntecTruePower 850w. A 500w PSU is a little anemic for your system. You shouldn't be hesitant about using a big wattage power supply, they don't consume an appreciable amount of power themselves. The wattage rating really denotes how much power they can provide to various loads connected it.

edit; I just noticed this...

Two SATA HD (stripe RAID)

FSX is loading free flight from raid mode o? (I think stripe RAID is mode o) That's interesting, I've not heard of anyone else doing that. It should work and certainly not shut down the computer at the completion of the load!

I have brand new ULTRA LSU650W PSU with a single +12V rail capable of a hefty 38A, sealed in a box. I'm waiting to read up on some more thoughts from the forum before I do that.

I tried another test. I pulled and old Geforce 7800 GT Super Clocked out of the closet and installed it. It runs FSX perfectly with no hitches! Can't really get desirable frame rates but none-the-less my system doesn't shut down! Strange. I can fly for hours. I set GPS NAV auto pilot west bound out of Pearson Airport at 2500 ft so that ground elements would render details along the way to load the GPU. I came back a few hours later and I was still on course.

The difference is the old 7800 is PCI-E 1.0. The 9800 GT Superclock and 9800 GTX are both PCI-E 2.0. The K9N Platinum mobo has a 1.0a 16X slot. Could there be some incompatibility issues here? From what I understand, there should NOT be. And again I have no issues playing GTA4 at high settings.

Does the old 7800 vid card require seperate pci-e power cable(s)? If not, I still suspect the current power supply.

The 9800 GT Superclock and 9800 GTX are both PCI-E 2.0, but are back ward compatable to PCI-E 1.0. The rule of thumb is that if you can seat the card in a slot, it's compatable, drivers willing. nVida has a little application under their driver support tab that you can run on your system. The application looks at system software & hardware, then recommends wrql and beta drivers, control panels, and tweqkers.

Yup. 7800 does not require a plug from the PSU as the 9800's do. SOooo.... I'm gonna swap the PSU to an Ultra LS650. Fingers crossed.

I'm updating you all with a new PSU installed... just after FSX crashed... AGAIN. Same deal, but this time I got the slow flashing blue power light after the shut down....

Well (a deep subject),.,., This is getting very interesting 😞 Lets recap the problem. please acknowledge if I understand it.

Your computer suddenly shuts down (fans stop, dark display, slowly blinking power LED) when you click on Free Flight in the FSX menu.
Otherwise the computer behaves normally! To recover, you cycle the PSU rocker switch delayed 30 sec.
BUT
FSX runs reliably when an old 7800 vid card is installed!

XP Pro SP3
KN9 Platinum mb
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 6000+ Brisbane
GeForce 9800 GTX or 9800 GT Superclock
CM2X1024-6400C4 RAM x 2
PSU 500W (28A on a single +12V) or ULTRA LSU650W PSU with a single +12V rail capable of a hefty 38A
Two SATA HD (stripe RAID)
One IDE HD
DVD/CD RW
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum
and a 3 1/2" floppy

I'm straw grasping here, this should not have anything to do with it.
but
KN9 Platinum mb has on board sound, try pulling the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum and enable sound in bios setup.
next
that involves resorting to a single hard drive, which means reinstalling all software. edit,, whooa, did I just notice you have THREE (3) physical hardrives in the box !?
or
a newer mb.

You are totally correct.

I'll pull the SB Audigy 2 Plat and see what happens.

Also, you mentioned earlier, "nVida has a little application under their driver support tab that you can run on your system". I couldn't locate it. Can you forward me a link?

Thanks for your time on this, Oldsamer. It's much appreciated.

You're more than welcome, I'm learning some answers to questions I've wondered about. Here's some things I found on nvidia's support knowledge database.

http://forums.nvidia.com//?showtopic=59116#3.1T.4
My computer partially or completely shuts down when running 3D applications/games.
Disable automatic restarting. If automatic restarting has already been disabled, the PSU may not be sufficient or may not be properly connected. See the Hardware section of this FAQ.

Hardware
3.1 How can I tell which graphics card will work in my system?
Yadda-*.*-yadda two para graphs. then----
PCI-Express 2.0 doubles the amount of bandwidth per PCI-Express lane, offering a maximum of 16GB/s (8GB/s in each direction) of bandwidth from a PCI-Express x16 port.

To me that says your mb is outputting 4GB/s in each direction (PCI-Express 1.0) while the 9800 cards can receive a maximum of 8GB, not a problem. Here is the utility I was thinking of--

CPUID's CPU-Z utility can detect if an installed motherboard supports AGP or PCI-Express interfaces. Simply download, extract and run the free utility. The port will be listed near the bottom of the Mainboard tab, in the Graphics Interface section. If CPU-Z cannot properly detect the motherboard's port, look up the motherboard's capabilities on the manufacture's website.
You already know that; PCI-E x16 express 1.0

3.1.1 What are the power requirements of a graphics card?
8 pages of yadda---IMHO you could arc weld 1/4" steel plate with any PSU nVidia likes.

CPU-Z detected my PCI-E port just fine.

I've unplugged everything but the essentials, i.e. Floppy A, DVD-RW, IDE HD, SB Audigy 2 Plat. Shuts down.

About the PSU, I think my new 38A is plenty current, no? It's on a Single Rail too.

Man this blows.

EDIT: Can I plug my old PSU directly into the Graghics card as an external PSU?

About the PSU, I think my new 38A is plenty current, no? It's on a Single Rail too.

I think so, it meets the Geforce9800 requirements.

Can I plug my old PSU directly into the Graghics card as an external PSU?

I don't know, not heard of it being done. If the main PSU shuts down, there would still be +12 on the vid card. Don't know if that would hurt anything. edit: when I think about it. would be no why to enable PSU on pin 9, so couldn't turn old PSU on.

Man this blows.

Yep
I keep circling back the the fact that the Geforce 7800 runs the computer well. About now I'd want another computer to install the 9800's in, just to see if the fault follows them. A new motherboard looks like a new computer to MicroSoft, so ya gotta call them to get registered. But motherboards are cheaper than vid cards.

Gosh, this sounds so much like a temp problem. Problem is that your temps seem to be fine according to your checks. Geez, I had exact same problems with different specs (gpu, cpu, ram, etc.) and Photoshop. Replaced a fan on the Core 2 Quad 1.86 and all is well - no shut down since.

Weird.

Using speed fan 4.38 my highest reported GPU temp was 35C.

I'm at the end of my wits here. Is there any error logging I can enable in FSX?

What exactly is the application requesting of a PC after clicking the Free Flight link?

Bump. ; Radarman may have some idea.

What exactly is the application requesting of a PC after clicking the Free Flight link?

Is FSX detecting the installed vid card (look in [graphics] settings). Have you tryed FSX's deflault settings for the card?

Uninstalling & reinstalling FSX, sp1, and sp2 with the 9800 GTX installed might be tryed. Certainly before replacing any more hardware.

Any whoo, when you do crack this I wanna what it was.

tried the complete reinstall. Removed FSX, rebooted, removed the display driver for 9800 GTX, rebooted into safemode, driversweeped everything nvidia display and physX related. Rebooted. Installed ver 182 for 9 Series (latest 185 sux c***... Sorry, feeling a wee bit ticked) rebooted. Installed FSX Delux, rebooted, installed SP1, rebooted. Installed SP2, rebooted. Launched FSX SP2, clicked on Free Flight, crashed, freaked out, broke the key board, watched the Basket ball game, went to bed.

Looking forward to hearing from Radar man.

...maybe I should just go X Plane.

Task manager, how many processes running.

You may be pushing that card and a 500w p/s.
Now that you have new drivers in, uninstall SP1 and 2, set your Sims settings way low on autogen, scenery and AI just get it so you can see the aircraft.
Put the sound settings at medium, they use resources.
If you like, you can disable the anti virus, fly and enable it again. As long as you don't go on line you don't need it.

Don't ever disable your firewall.

When you uninstalled did you delte the log, if not do so, it will build another. The same with the fsx.cfg.

Now try free flight.

Radarman! Okay I'm on it. I'll have to post back tomorrow or Saturday though... Cheers!

Did as planned... This time the plane came up and it rotated, as it does, but for 20 mins this time. Then it crashed.

I'm prepping to do a complete OS reinstall. This time im gonna get rid of the striping raid...

A fresh install is always the best way but you lose so much.
Too bad, it probably was something simple that was staring us in the face.

Well, I'm back up with a freshly installed OS and I the Free Flight link crashed after 2 mins.

I'm assuming the "crash" is the same, IE;

Your computer suddenly shuts down (fans stop, dark display, slowly blinking power LED) when you click on Free Flight in the FSX menu.
Otherwise the computer behaves normally! To recover, you cycle the PSU rocker switch delayed 30 sec.
BUT
FSX runs reliably when an old 7800 vid card is installed!

XP Pro SP3
KN9 Platinum mb
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 6000+ Brisbane
GeForce 9800 GTX or 9800 GT Superclock
CM2X1024-6400C4 RAM x 2
PSU 500W (28A on a single +12V) or ULTRA LSU650W PSU with a single +12V rail capable of a hefty 38A
Two SATA HD (stripe RAID) or Sata HD
One IDE HD
DVD/CD RW
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum
and a 3 1/2" floppy

Well this time no blue light.

What happend was it crashed the first time, no blue light, I hit the power button and started up again, crashed it, no blue light started up, but I had to leave. The hardware difference now is that I got rid of the RAID setup. I now have the 2 SATA HDs operating on their own. Here's another observation - Before I reinstalled the OS, when I was RAID Striping, when I click on the Free Flight link I can hear the Hardrives chugging away quite loudly. Now that only one drive is going it's not so bad, but it IS chugging for a whole two mins or so and then it crashes.

Humm

The computer completely turns off (psu set to off) that means the motherboard sent a low to the psu on pin 9 after winXp Pro is called to load a lot of data into RAM & virtual RAM addresses for FSX. This only occurs in FSX when Geforce 7800 is NOT installed.

Short of replacing the motherboard. Look hard at Bios settings, particular with respect to drive setup. Try Bios default settings. This shouldn't be the problem, since the computer works fine otherwise.

If it were me, I'd declare this to be time to build a newer, better, faster box.
I really don't have any better suggestions, but please keep us here informed, this is really interesting.

oldsamer wrote:

If it were me, I'd declare this to be time to build a newer, better, faster box.

A shame really considering that with his specs he could run FS9 easily and enjoy the hobby instead of trying to figure out how to coax FSX into action.

A shame really considering that with his specs he could run FS9 easily and enjoy the hobby instead of trying to figure out how to coax FSX into action.

It is a shame Chief.
Sometimes I think we would have all been happier if FSX never appeared..

Just grasping at straws here, but a couple of things you might try.

Install the latest version of DirectX. Doesn't really sound like a directx thing, but doesn't cost anything to try - you've done everything else.. 😕
It's the fact that you can play GTA4 with no problems that makes it so strange.

http://www.softwarepatch.com/windows/directx.html

also, maybe try running Prime95 for a few hours and see if it crashes.
I doubt if it will but -

http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=103

The difference is the old 7800 is PCI-E 1.0. The 9800 GT Superclock and 9800 GTX are both PCI-E 2.0. The K9N Platinum mobo has a 1.0a 16X slot. Could there be some incompatibility issues here? From what I understand, there should NOT be. And again I have no issues playing GTA4 at high settings.

They are supposed to be backward compatible as others have said, but although I haven't seen it myself - I have heard that it is not always the case.

I would be almost at the point where something like http://www.ncix.com/products//?sku=39451&promoid=1018 this would be looking pretty good.

Update DirectX, no go. I'm gonna try prime95. I think I'm just going to go X Plane.