Multiple FSX Problems At One Time

[TwoStep]

Good evening all,

I fired up my desktop PC this Saturday afternoon for a round of FSX, and wow - what a mess. First, my system is a Dell 310, P4 @ 3ghz, 1028 RAM, Radeon 9650 256K video card. Nothing spectacular but stout enough to run FSX, which it has been with only the normal minor glitches inherent in the program itself. No programs have been added or removed since my last FSX engagement and to the best of my knowledge, no viruses, trojans, spyware, etc. have found their way onboard. I'm careful and regular about keeping files cleaned out, disks defragged and so forth. Every other program, as far as I know, that's installed on this machine is still running just fine.

The first indication that something was amiss is that all audio (FSX only) was missing. I closed and reopened the program, same thing. A computer reboot was of no help. I tried different aircraft, different cities, different missions. Nothing. Out of sheer aggravation I decided to uninstall/reinstall FSX completely...ha. No such luck. Add/Remove Programs, while it SAYS the program is uninstalled, actually does no such thing and allows only for an FSX settings reinstallation/repair option, VIA the installation DVD. If there's a way to completely uninstall the program short of a complete reformat I'd sure like to know what it is....

Anyway, I did the settings/repair VIA DVD option and the audio is back! I'm excited...but my excitement doesn't last very long. I now notice that the virtual cockpit loads by default and I have no idea how to change it back to the standard cockpit (by default), which I prefer, and which it's always been up until today. To add to the misery, I can no longer begin a free flight on the ground...the flight begins in the air above whatever city I've chosen. That's never happened before and I absolutely cannot figure out how to change it back. In other words, the only way I can take off is to land first.

The final insult is that the first time ANY settings are modified (aircraft, scenery, weather, resolution, anything), there goes the audio. Gone. And there's only one way to get it back at all...run the settings/repair installation DVD again as I detailed earlier.

I've noticed erratic scenery/terrain loading (progress bar) since this has happened, and at least twice today FSX has locked up the whole computer. I've seen this on rare occasions before, but today it's quite pronounced.

Sorry for the long post but the devil's in the details...so I've tried to detail as carefully and thoroughly as possible. Many thanks in advance to anyone who has an idea as to how I can remedy these problems.  I've searched the forum a bit; if I've overlooked any answers, I apologize. Again, thanks for your time.  TS

[DONTREADMYUSERNAME]

well i can help you with one of your problems!

to switch from the VC to the 2-D panel press "A" while in the cockpit view

for your other problems, may the force be with you. Someone will probably be able to help you.

[Brett_Henderson]

Somehow... you saved a flight with audio turned off and the plane in mid-air and it got saved as the default flight... that would be  MY guess.

Try running it it and go into the settings and turn the sound on.. THEN land and park and at THAT point save the flight making sure to save it as the default flight.

That probably won't help, but it's my best guess..  because flights get saved to your own documents.. somewhere.. regardless of whether you reinstall or repair..

good luck..

[fighter25]

For the audio, try pressing Q in free flight. That is the sound on/off key in free flight.

[TwoStep]

Many thanks for the replies!

Fighter25, I had already tried the Q thing; it had no effect whatsoever. DontRead, I tried your idea and it worked fine...until I started another flight. The program defaulted right back to Virtual Cockpit. That's not a big issue, of course - but the fact that it's happening and I'm not able to put things back as they were IS an issue.

Brett, I attempted to get the program to save a different default flight and it locked my computer down again...this time some files were corrupted in the melee. I got them repaired, and was FINALLY able to get FSX to completely uninstall after about 30 attempts. Hopefully a fresh install will rid my PC of whatever gremlins were causing the problems. I'll post back once the install's done and all the settings are reset. Thanks....TS

[TwoStep]

This is turning from aggravating to maddening in a hurry.

The uninstall, which took about 30 minutes and indicated a successful operation - and the subsequent reinstallation which took a little longer and also indicated a success...was all for naught. There was no uninstall, despite what the computer indicated. Every one of my old settings showed right back up upon running the program again, and a check of the 'new installation' properties indicated a creation date of Nov 1, 2006, exactly the same date the original installation was done.

I was able to get some sound, the proper cockpit and a runway takeoff by default by leaving the default graphics/aircraft/scenery/weather/traffic settings alone. Changing the sound/realism, etc settings had no effect. I set as a default flight a LearJet 45 taking off from Sheppard AFB in Wichita Falls, Texas. Worked fine! One by one, I changed the settings to suit my tastes, and as soon as I changed 'special effects' from 'high' to 'medium' - wham, no audio, no LearJet default flight, no runway takeoff and virtual cockpit by default.

I closed the program, reopened it and all the settings were set back to factory defaults without my doing a thing. Still no audio, no runway takeoff by default and no 2D cockpit. I went through the repair settings using the program DVD procedure that I mentioned in my first post - and got back to where I was before I reset the 'special effects'. I left that setting alone for now....and was able to fly to my heart's content - any plane, from any airport.

That ain't the end of it. Thinking I'd just leave the SE setting on high and be done with it, I closed the program down again...then tried reopening it. Every one of the graphics/aircraft/scenery/weather/traffic settings had been reset to the default settings, including the FS music (which was turned off) and the Trike flight (which had been set to the LearJet 45).

What I'm left with is a program that cannot be uninstalled by conventional means, that loses audio for some reason after changing one setting, and one that will not keep settings in memory....and locks up the PC about every 4th or 5th time it's opened. Not one of these problems existed until today.

I'll have the local PC shop take a look; they're well equipped to handle PC problems but unfortunately aren't experienced with FSX. Hopefully they can just get the program completely off the hard drive and I can try a legitimate reinstall - that failing, I'll just go back to FS2004 and forget FSX altogether. It's maddening as hell to have something work just fine for 5 months and then suffer such a meltdown - and not have a clue as to why.

[reider]

Sounds like FDISK/Format time, wipe the drive completely and start again.  I`ve done 3/4 FSX installs and fortunately started from this scenario every time.  Then done 3 passes of the defrag afterward.  Never a problem at all with FSX.

Reider

[DizZa]

Try updating your sound drivers? Also if that dosn't work, try pressing Q in simulator.

[Brett_Henderson]

This is sounding like a hardware (or driver) issue for sure. FSX is encountering something it doesn't like and stuff is getting reset and/or disabled. Is your HDD near capacity or getting a little long-in-tooth ? I'm no expert, but if the area set aside for "paging" is fragmented, or on a place on the media that's worn.. that can spell trouble for a program that's as hardware demanding as FSX.

[Brett_Henderson]

If you DO end up trying a FDISK/Format... and your HDD is much over a year old.. Consider getting a new HDD.

I replace HDDs every year, just like routine maintanence. At about 50 cents per GB, it's best to just treat them like tires... replace them at a sensible interval.. not after a blowout.

[DONTREADMYUSERNAME]

somewhere in the settings i remeber running across a check box for setting what panel you want as your default. i belive it was in the settings/display/aircraft tab. Hope that helps

[TwoStep]

I finally, for real this time, got the program to uninstall completely, just a while ago. As for my HDD, it's a Seagate SATA drive, 160GB, one year old, and currently has about 35 gigs utilized, including FSX (it has 22G on it now, after the FSX uninstall), so obviously it's not overloaded. It could be going south, however, as Brett mentioned. Oh, well...I had some backup work to do anyway, so maybe now's the time to replace the thing.

I've had some audio issues pop up in other areas today - once the volume decreased on its own by about 75 percent and just as suddenly returned to 100 percent without my changing anything....and once it just quit altogether, just like it did repeatedly in FSX. I noticed at the time that any music I attempted to play (Windows Media Player) acted as if it were stuck in fast forward. A couple of reboots got the audio back, and WMP went back to normal speed and normal operation.

First, I'll reinstall FSX. Then, I'll take a good look at the sound card and driver situation, although I'm puzzled as to why it worked just fine two days ago and went to hell in a handbasket the next day. That doesn't sound like an outdated driver to me...sounds more like a sound card giving up the ghost. Is it possible that a resource hog such as FSX can exact such demands on the sound card that it would cause a weak one to intermittently stop working? Just theorizing here and trying to isolate the problem.

Then, a complete reformat, I suppose, is in order. Oh, me...there's things I'd rather be doing, such as merrily flying my (simulated) Learjet around like I was doing Friday. Thanks, all.   TS