I recently built a new PC with a Ryzen 5900x, MSI Gaming Trio X 3080, 32gb ram, and AX760 PSU. I have not had any issues playing any other games, but will experience a total loss of power every time I launch Flight Simulator. Sometimes it will make it all the way to the main menu but shut off as soon as I try to start a flight. I have tried the two must recent GPU drivers and am on the latest bios. I have even used MSI afterburner to limit the graphics card all the way down to 50% power and still experience the same issues. This kind of sounds like a power supply issue, but wanted to get some other opinions since this is the only game I’m having issues with.
1 Like
I had exactly the same problem, and was fixed with a very good quality power supply.
Please bear in mind that when it comes to power supplies, it is not only about advertised power delivery, but also (and critically) about quality. Modern GPUs can change power draw by A LOT really fast, so your power supply must be able to cope with a fast transient, and that´s not only about raw power. Some people are reporting problems with cheap 850W PSUs while other with essentially the same hardware are working fine even with 650 W. Quality makes the difference.
Be sure to use a good quality product, with good quality capacitors, and 400w or more in a sigle 12 V rail. Oh, and if your card uses two connectors, feed each them from a separate PCIe cable from the PSU, don´t use a single cable from the PSU split in two at the end, or you can be over-stressing that power rail.
Hope this helps.
7 Likes
Makes sense. Or could be overheating.
4 Likes
I just did a quick calk with the Seasonic Wattage Calculator and it spat out a wattage of your system of around 650 W. Depending on your actual configuration and if you’re overclocking and things like that the PSU could be an issue.
I can see that the TDP of your graphics card is already 20 Watts higher than that of the Founder’s Edition so you might want to double-check your system’s approximate wattage under load.
Also, as you’ve built the PC on your own and the AX is fully modular and it’s also a common issue: have you checked the cabling? Sometimes it just needs a cable that is tilted for a fraction of a millimeter to blow up power transmission under heavy load. Which MSFS can easily provoke.
Finally, also the things @ProofPandora683 mentioned.
1 Like
another thing to double-check; make sure the power supply cables going to the GPU are not daisy-chaining from a single cable. Make sure you have dedicated cables from the PSU to the GPU connectors.
A single cable can’t handle the power the GPU needs.
2 Likes
@MichaelDuke35 How long did you have that PSU although its often the PSU to blame in most cases.That’s a good PSU though!
Mine had the same issue when flying for a couple of mins the PC would shutoff without a warning without a rebooot and it turned out my old cpu was likely overheating.I added thermal paste and no more shutdowns!
That too although 99% of the time its the PSU people often miss components overheating and those software readings do not give you the internal temp readings!
I had exactly the same problem with an RTX3090 and an 850w rated power supply.
It’s not about the average run load but MSFS causes the GPU to create a sudden spike in PSU load and dependant on the rail configuration of the PSU (1,2 or more separate 12v rails), it’s easy for the GPU to trip the overload protection of the PSU and cause a shutdown.
Just starting MSFS was enough to cause the trip.
Mine was fixed by replacing the PSU with a 1100W 80Gold rated PSU. No shutdowns since 
I also agree that thermal problems can cause problems too but that’s usually after a few minutes running.
Keep in mind this sim heavily stresses the CPU more than the GPU.30x cards probably has power delivery issues.Not surprise folks with 750w-850w PSUs have issues.
1 Like
I got sick of replacing power supplies years ago. Its been more than eight years since I bought my Cooler Master 1200watt Silent Pro Gold. Actually swapped it out of my old PC into my new one… and its still going strong.
1 Like
Obviously your computer doesn’t satisfy with this so call flight sim anymore. That’s why it shuts down…
I had exactly exactly the same issue… ah I have still Be Quiet is sending 1000W Straight Power 11 to me I will test press the thumbs
Upgraded my PC for this sim, more memory, new graphics card, new SSD’s, new OS and bought an i7 4790-k initially not overclocked. The Sim has run reasonably well for 3-4 weeks.
Overclocked the CPU this morning @4.6 Ghz. The sim ran like a dream, even over London. The CPU temp was good…and then the PC randomly shut down mid flight. Concluded it was the PSU.
I had 16GB of memory and bought another 16GB in anticipation of running MSFS back in August. It worked fine for a few weeks, but then I started to get random BSODs and shutdowns. I downloaded Memtest86 and ran it and found errors with the memory, so I sent it back (apparently new memory sticks being defective is pretty common). Unfortunately, the replacement they sent me did the same thing!
I decided to go with two new 32GB sticks instead, and they worked until I overclocked them. After that, I had the random shutdowns again, many of which occurred while running MSFS. I stopped overclocking and the memory had worked fine since. Moral of the story – never mix memory types, and if you overclock memory or your processor, bear in mind that it could cause problems.
I just experienced this for the first time after today’s update. I’ve run the sim with no issues since September 2020 with my entire PC being brand new parts (Ryzen 7 3800XT, RTX 3080, 64GB RAM). It’s not overclocked. I’ve never had a single issue like this until today but had a complete loss of power after being in flight for about 40 minutes going from KIND to KSDF.
The CJ4 AP had just captured the KSDF localizer and POOF. PC went black.
Maybe the PSU gave up or insufficient cooling.What PSU do you have and what is your cooling solution?
Incorrect on both I’d imagine. I’ve got a Dark Rock Pro 4 + 6 case fans and never hit above 78C prior to the shutdown.
PSU probably got tripped by MSFS causing a spike because I’ve got one of the best PSUs on the market.
Everyone always wants to jump to hardware being the cause…
We are just trying to help and you fail to explain what psu you even have.
If your psu got tripped by MSFS clearly your claim of having one of the best PSU is hard to buy 
And this is why I don’t ask questions here… because everyone immediately assumes your running a piece of junk any time you have a problem.
1 Like
I’m having the same problem. The sim has been running great since I built a brand new PC back in November 2020 (That’s almost 8 months without power issue whatsoever), but midway through Discovery Flight at Mt. Everest after Sim Update 5, my PC abruptly shut down after around 15 minutes of flying (that’s also after I lowered the graphics settings a bit to test in-game performance). Ever since that, every time I restart the sim, it gets through the “checking for updates” screen but when it loads around 50-55%, my PC abruptly shuts down EVERY TIME, so I can’t even get to the game menu now. The first shutdown was random mid-flight, yet every time since then it’s 100% reproduceable at launch.
I’d also like to share that right after updating to Sim Update 5 (before the shutdown issue), a tree draw distance fix in the community folder caused the flight to not load at all and it took me some tries to figure that out, which prompted me to relaunch the sim over and over again, but without issue. So before the shutdowns occur, I managed to successfully launch the sim around 10 times.
If a power draw spike tripping the PSU is causing this, I’d likely experience this either during the 8 months before the latest update or right after launching the update, but this is happening only after I changed some graphics settings after Sim Update 5. Coincidence? I think not. I’m wondering if I tripped a bug in the software when I was changing the graphics settings that caused a power draw spike in the latest update, so I’ll try to reinstall the sim to reset the settings and see if it stops shutting down mid-launch.
Here’s my PC specs. Nothing you see below is overclocked because I need my system to be stable for other works:
AMD Ryzen 9 5900X
Colorful iGame GeForce RTX 3070
ASRock B550M Steel Legend
G.Skill DDR4 Flare X PC25600 (2x16GB)
Corsair CX750M 750 Watt 80 Plus Bronze