For the last 3 weeks MSFS has been shutting down during flight after flying for about 45 minutes to an hour. Have not had this problem since purchasing a year and 1/2 ago. Actions taken: (1) reinstalled MSFS 3 times with latest updates (2) Had Geek Squad confirm that CPU/GPU operating normally and at correct temperatures while the sim is running; (3) Updated GEFORCE RTX 3060 graphics card; (4) Updated Windows 11; (5) Cleared Community folder and all other 3rd party addons; (6) Reduced all settings to medium; (7) Tried multiple long haul aircraft and liveries. System is HP Omen AMD Ryzen 5 5600G with Radeon graphics 3.90 ghz; 16gb RAM. Extremely frustrating as I have been a simmer since the early years. Any suggestions/help would be appreciated.
This sounds like the PSU is being difficult, this can happen when the power supply misbehaves/fluctuates. If you have a spare decent PSU ideally 700 to 800 watts, just swap them over and see what happens. Cooling is very important, rather then just trusting software to tell you check visually inside the case and around to make sure all fans are working.
Thanks for the response. Sounds logical that it may be the PSU but the fan is running and the unit is not hot to the touch. Still not sure that means it is functioning properly. I don’t know of anyway to check other than replacement.
You could try running your CPU and GPU at lower power settings in MSFS as a test for your PSU. Easiest way to do it is to set Windows power mode to power saver, which should disable turbo on your CPU like:
and use a utility like MSI Afterburner to set a power limit on your GPU to 50% like:
I actually do both of these things during the cruise phase of longer flights, not because my system shuts down which is what you would be testing for but rather to save on power, noise and overall system stress when I am not really caring about MSFS performance.
Anyway, something for you to consider trying before changing PSU because if MSFS is still bombing out at low power settings then your PSU is less of a suspect. When you’ve finished, don’t forget to change your Windows power profile back to what it was before the test.
If it were the PSU you might see something more drastic than the sim shutting down. You might find the entire PC resets, getting turned off in essence, before possibly restarting.
In either case, an event should get written to the Application log if MSFS shuts prematurely, and possibly the SYSTEM log if it were a power issue if the OS reboots.
I had 850w PSU but when I got my ASUS ROG strix 3090 my PC would shutdown. After I got 1200w PSU from maingear I never had the issue.
You would likely have got some unexpected shutdown messages in the SYSTEM event log to go along with that.
Appreciate all of the feedback and great recommendations. I think I have narrowed it down to a “heat” problem. Had two successful flights yesterday and one today. Weather has been much cooler here on the East Coast USA in the past few days and the sim seems to be working first in safe mode and today in normal mode so possible just enough warmer ambient air to trigger the CPU to protect itself recently (just a thought). I also took the side panel off and let a high powered fan blow in yesterday and flight did not crash to desk top but was in safe mode and couldn’t determine if it was the fan or safe mode. Today flew with the side panel on in regular mode and completed the flight. Strangely, I botched the landing and when I tried to go back to the home page it then crashed to desk top (???). Will try a two to three hour flight and see how it performs. Thanks again all.