Random reboots during FS2004... my ordeal with solving it

[Tim Vasquez 823889]

I've been running a fairly nice new computer (system specs below) and have been running FS2004 for several weeks. The very night that I installed Dreamfleet 727 on FS2004, in fact about 20 minutes into playing with it, I had a random reboot during climbout. The blue screen said:

 

IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

 

OK, no big deal. Well, after that, anytime I was in FS2004 I would get a random reboot during every 1 to 2 flights. Same message.

 

Last Friday I had my first random reboot outside of FS2004... it was while I was building a set of thumbnails in ThumbsPlus. Then to top things off, last night after a reboot while flying AUS-DFW I could no longer get into Windows! After the Windows splash screen and just before the Windows login, it consistently stopped with:

 

PFN_LIST_CORRUPT

 

I was able to reboot Windows into safe mode just fine, but not at all doing it regularly. I pulled the nVidia card, using the onboard video, and it was the same thing, so I was able to rule out the video card. Everything I Googled said "when thou have random reboots, check thy RAM", so I ran Memtest86 overnight for 7 hours. It reported absolutely no problems.

 

So................ I reinstalled Windows today. The system is working fine so far. I'm trying to find a good benchmark program to tax the CPU and video card to see if it's a heating issue, so I'm downloading 3DMark (not sure if that's the right tool or not). But I'm thinking it's not a temperature issue since I was getting blue screens during bootup, even cold.

 

My conclusion: I am guessing a BAD driver got installed under Windows. It's awfully weird that this coincided with the Dreamfleet 727 install, and I'm wondering what it might have changed outside the FS2004 directory structure. I am going to start out again with FS2004, FS9 patch, Squawkbox, LD767, and nothing else and see what happens.

 

One thing that is kind of funky is that with Everest and Motherboard Monitor I'm getting weird temperature readouts with the CPU sensor... it varies between like 9C and 49C, constantly changing every few seconds. Like I'm seeing this: 21, 46, 51, 3, 10, 26, 38, 43, 8, 43, 26, etc as I type. I wonder if this might have something to do with it.

 

Tim

Win2K SP4 / PC Chips P21G / Celeron D351 3.2 GHz / 1 GB RAM /

450W power / PNY nVidia geForce AGP 6600LE 256MB / Via AC97 audio

[Tim Vasquez 823889]

Guess what? I started getting PFN_LIST_CORRUPT errors AGAIN during the brand new Windows startup.

 

The business that sold it to me said that Memtest86 was garbage and to try a tester called GoldMemory (easily Googlable). This revealed one error 4 hours into the test and another after 12 hours. So it appears it's my RAM. Hope it really is that simple.

 

 

Tim