I had a rather irritating crash/freeze problem in both MSFS2020 and MSFS2024 for a few months. It took me a while to figure it out. Hope the following might help someone.
The symptom was actually twofold. One, freezes, and two, crashes to reset. One thing WINDOWS and especially Windows Apps are suspect of is not handling the situation where the system has no memory to allocate. This gave me a clue and I eventually found that running the sim and all the support apps was hovering at about 95% of my RAM. I doubled my RAM and was happy to see that the freezes had stopped.
The crashes to reset indicated that the error, whatever it was, was probably hardware, especially since I noticed the sim had to run for a while before it would crash. Other real-time 3D apps crashed in a similar manner. I had previously added a new SSD drive because of the unexpected amount of video data I was generating. This caused me to remove my GFX card to access the plug on the motherboard. I recently remembered this was about when the crashes started to occur. On a lark, I reopened my computer case, wiggled the GFX card in its socket so that I could see it move.
I am happy to say that several long flights later with every app running, I’ve seen no crashes or freezes.
Woohoo! Happy days!
HTH
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Well, after several long flights, my system has returned to crashes and freezes. <!!!%^&#*!!!> 
It’s always a good idea to max memory so that doesn’t bother me. There was no other cost involved so I’m good generally, but…
I ran MSFS2024 without any other apps running and it crashed to reset. That means I have five possible culprits, right?
MSFS202[0|4]
Windows 11
NVidia driver
GFX card (since the crashes/freezes only occur during heavy 3D usage)
Power supply
I ran a GFX card “exerciser” to see if the GFX card would jam or overheat but it didn’t. I also ran a much older NVidia driver and it still crashed.
It appears, at least to me, that all of these would leave some kind of event that I could view, but there are no related events in any viewer that I can find.
These crash/freezes started about six months ago. Thus, it probably isn’t a '24-only issue.
Anyone have a suggestion?
Thanks
The only suggestion I have is to check if you have RAM overclocking enabled. XMP or DOCP on AMD systems. If yes, you may want to adjust the BIOS System Agent voltage up incrementally until the crashes stop. This is what has worked for me.
Here’s a video from a YouTuber that addresses some of the RAM issues that we have seen here in the FlightSim community also: https://youtu.be/bM2na55xXuI?si=LdoRGefS2q9YecQ5
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What model numbers are your:
CPU?
GPU?
PSU?
Motherboard?
RAM?
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Thanks for your help guys!
MSFS support is now in the loop so hopefully I can get this fixed without too much trouble. Anyways, 9900k, 2080, 1000W, Asus (I can get the model if it’s really necessary), 32G.
I have done extensive testing on both the CPU and the GFX card separately and neither seems to have any temperature or other problems. (But why do I need to download a 3rd party app to see my CPU temp?)
Thanks, happy flying.
I agree that Microsoft should do a much better job giving us a native Windows app that shows us sensor data.
For me though it’s not a big deal to use Open Hardware Monitor. In fact, I quite like it.
The main reason I asked for model numbers is to look at compatibility.
- Are you certain your RAM is on your motherboard and CPU QVL’s?
- Is your PSU a high-quality unit from a well-established manufacturer? Wattage doesn’t tell the whole story.
Yes, and yes.
I’ve done some research and some stress/temp testing on CPU and GPU. They don’t seem to be the issue. I’ve done a bunch of flights and something I did has actually reduced the number of crashes. An improvement! I don’t believe it’s fixed yet, though.
BTW, why OHwM over HWINFO?
Thanks for your input!
I have both. I use HWiNFO when I want to really dig in and see everything.
OHwM shows me the basics, and has a neat customizable gadget that I can position anywhere on the desktop, on top of other windows. I monitor CPU temp, GPU temp, and GPU load, but you can add as many metrics as you want. (I positioned it in the red box for this picture.) You can see how nice and compact it is.
That looks very useful. Thanks for that as it shows me a practical example without my needing to install/run/comprehend.
Weirdly, I have yet to see a new crash/freeze for several flights now. I’m not certain they are gone yet. The only thing I can think of is that I had vacuumed away the interior dust clinging to my CPU radiator. Also weird is that I don’t feel the temp difference in the hoses between the CPU and the radiator/fan. OTOH, my GPU heatsink is so hot I can’t leave my fingers on it, yet the stress tests give it a pass.
The major symptom being that the crash/freeze is random and leaves no trace suggests a critical HW failure that doesn’t allow an error event to be recorded. I thought sure it would be a temperature thing. But dust? It wasn’t that bad.
I’ll need many more flights before I’m convinced. 
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Update: I flew two extended flights, one of them down the Thames in London, and I am happy to report that not only were the flights crash/freeze free, but the graphics were quite good. Very smooth with a level of detail I did not expect.
Still can’t believe it was dust.
I’m having a similar issue where I just built a new computer and have updated all drivers and installed msfs 2020 and the game starts to load and gets about halfway and crashes. Happens in both normal and safe mode and i’m not sure what it could be
Update:
I noticed that the CPU cooler would get very warm running MSFS but not hot, and when I shut down MSFS the cooler/hoses/etc would all cool back down quickly. CPU must be working.
Well, everything was running so well I decided to put the glass side cover back on my PC. Wham! 20 minutes in, crash to reset. So it wasn’t the dust.
Took the glass panel off and flew for an hour with no issues. This MUST be thermal. I looked at my chassis airflow and noticed the airflow for the GFX card would exit and immediately be sucked back in because the motherboard slot end “blanks” were perforated.
I made some cardboard templates to insure better airflow and observed a one degree drop in the overall GPU temperature when running MSFS. I will replace the cardboard with metal, of course.
So what changed? I’ve had this PC for some time without any crashes/freezes. At the moment I’m thinking thermal joint compound breakdown, but redoing that stuff is such a pain.
But hey, I’m running right now! Woohoo!
(BTW, support from MS dropped out before my last entry above.)
