It’s quite possible. I vape (sinner!) and I used to charge it on my PC, one day my PC rebooted and an error code pointed to an over current in the USB port… needless to say, I no longer charge it in my PC.
Are you plugging things in front ports? Also USB 2.0 or 3.0, some devices don’t play nice with 3.0 such as logitech wheels.
then I guess me smoking makes me the devil incarnate
Update your sound drivers, they are always a suspect. In fact I personally have audio disabled in bios and just run mine from a Blutooth dongle attached to my monitor (TV) thru the headphone’s port (Nvidia HDMI audio). Solid!
I have already disabled audio in bios too.
Well, that’s 3 successful flights now since removing that camera.
Just rebooted pc and have now got the unknown device in device manager… will unplug, replug, NOT reboot, and see if it crashes. Then I’ll know of its the camera or the unknown device without reboot… hopefully.
Thanks for continuing to update. I’ve seen countless threads over the years where they just trail off, either because it couldn’t be fixed or the OP never updated whether they fixed it. It’s not just for the here and now but for little Timmy/Timette in 2025 who might end up having the same issue, see this thread and it helps them.
Absoutely agree, it’s also so frustrating for those that have tried to help diagnose the issue. Reddit is so full of such threads I usually scroll to the last entries first.
No worries, and thanks to everyone who’s helping. Sorry to anyone if i haven’t directly replied to a suggestion… it’s been a busy thread lol.
So, just landed at Luton again. No camera connected, DID have usb error on boot, fixed by unplugging and plugging in again. Did NOT have to reboot.
I mean… really… the thing to do now i suppose would be to plug the camera back in and see if it crashes again… but part of me is now just thinking, if it ain’t broke…
If i do plug it back and it crashes again, that can’t just be a coincidence?
For anyone wondering, it’s a logitech c615 that seems to be the problem. I have 2 other webcams connected (i have a very complex setup, multiple screens and different desks for different games, as some i play in 4k on massive screen, some in 1440p on a smaller monitor)… one is a c920 and one a c922. I only have 1 active at a time, but they both work fine in other games.
For msfs i originally had one of the webcams facing me, and then the c615 as an overhead cam to view all the controllers. I also share the main sim screen, and 2 of my 3 touch monitors, to display the pfd and mfd to the viewers (if i ever have any lol).
I think im gonna take another break, having just flown the same Gatwick to Luton flight 4 times in a row…
But I’ll probably end up plugging camera back in next time i test, and see if it crashes…i kind of hope that it does… at least then I’ll know.
The weird thing is though, that i was using that 2 cam and 3 screen setup for a while without issues.
When i first tried to stream the sim, i did have issues, but this was with an even older and cheaper webcam… it wouldn’t freeze the whole pc, but it was crashing the sim… bought some semi decent cams (the 920 and 922, they’re not amazing, but they’re reputable I’d say) and then added the c615 as a cheaper overhead cam. Been working fairly well until this week.
So yeah, I’ll try adding the cam back next time… fingers crossed that it crashes… then i can remove it, make the flight once more without crashing, then slowly start changing things again, adding in my ram oc, launching the sim with the batch file again (it’s much easier to just click 1 icon and have everything load), add back some software i was using (i stopped using spad.next and littlenavmap while testing all this to see if that had any affect, glad it didn’t). I’ll add one thing in at a time and hope it doesn’t crash.
To answer about the usb ports…i was basically using every available port… and still need 3 powered usb hubs. Some are usb3, some are usb2.
The c615 cam was direct into the rear usb2 port.
Front ports have an extension to an xbox controller, and a dongle for one of my mice (2 desks, i have 2 mice and 2 keyboards… even though…i though the mice are both wireless… yes it’s very lazy).
Rear ports i have one of my keyboard direct, that c615 direct (now removed), the other keyboard direct, one of the cams direct, then the 3 powered hubs…1 hub has my corsair headset dongle, the other camera, logitech wheel, handbrake, the charge cable for the headset, a small desk fan, power for a non touch display for twitch/ discord, and my other mouse dongle. TNT next hub has the 3 logitech flight panels, rudders, throttle, yoke and 1 of my 3 touch screens data/ power combined, and the gear falcon trim wheel. The final hub has my 2 knobsters, the other 2 touch screens and the tobii eye tracker.
As i said, it’s a complicated set up, so i can fully understand and expect things to go wrong sometimes…i just never really thought this would cause such an epic freezing issue.
So yeah, I’ll test more tomorrow and let y’all know how i get on. Thanks again for all your help so far… really hoping we finally got to the bottom of it.
Also thanks for suggesting occt psu test…i would never have known than my cpu UV was not actually stable without that.
Excellent news so far.
Uuuurghh.
Genuinely bamboozled now. Couldn’t leave it to try with the camera connected again.
So that’s everything connected up again, including the “problem” camera… not active, but connected… as it was before when it crashed.
Just touched down in Luton again.
It just seems like it’s fixed itself for no apparent reason now.
So utterly confused.
Every time i think ive worked out why it was crashing, it fails to crash when i return that thing.
I even thought, maybe just switching off at the wall and cleaning out all the dust fixed it… but then i remember, it still crashed right after that… within 10 minutes of starting the flight. Then i unplugged the camera and haven’t had a crash since… then i plug the camera back in and it still hasn’t crashed.
I’m baffled. It’s hard to enjoy the sim until i know what actually caused the freezing and how to avoid it.
Wouldn’t be unusual … a faulty driver gets unloaded and reloaded with Dr Watson doing his magic … especially Windows 11 has a lot of diagnostics built in but not every piece of hardware is covered etc. I have an old TV capture card that never worked well on this rig as 4 channels (from 60 odd) were always a mess. Just yesterday they decided to work perfectly. This came after two Windows ‘run as admin’ pop ups that I initially thought I had double clicked.
Well, I’ve added the camera back to the twitch setup, completed the flight 4 more times today. Even tried wiggling cables, and deliberately switching the cam off and on mid flight… just can’t get it to freeze up at all anymore.
So weird. If i do get a freeze again, I’ll try pinging the computer as suggested.
Just realised… this may actually have been related.
I usually disable audio in bios soon as i set up a pc, as i never use the on board audio… however, within the last few months, i did turn it back on, because i had been messing with the idea of streaming oculus quest native games and a cable from the headset seemed like the best option…a hadn’t flown much since changing that.
When i reinstalled windows, and set bios back to stock, the audio will have remained on in bios, but i wouldn’t have bothered updating the drivers beyond what windows will have done automatically.
If this was the culprit, it would explain why it still happened when i reset ram and cpu in bios…
I will have turned it off again when i was going through all the settings properly, and this might explain why I’ve not had a crash since?
Not saying 100%, as it seems unlikely that the whole system would freeze based on an on board sound card that had no speakers or anything plugged in at the time… but you never know.
Ive kept cpu stock, no undervolt, but made a slightly different ram OC, gone for 5600CL28, which is on the middle between stock 4800 and the 6400 rated speed of the kit. I know the system definitely can’t handle 6400,i think my cpu isn’t up to it, always get errors testing that high. 6000 and 6200, i can get stable in every ram test i try, but i do need to disable memory fast boot in bios so that it trains every boot, otherwise sometimes system switches itself off and on again at boot… still works, but not really happy with that behaviour. 5800 was my normal go to OC, had it on 5800CL30 for a long time and not had any issues, but have decided to change for 5600CL28 now instead. With sub timings for hynix from buildzoids video “easy ddr5 timings”, the performance, even at 5600 is not actually far off the xmp 6400 setting anyway. I think im around 10k read/ write/ copy lower, and about 6ns more latency… but compared to stock 4800 it’s still a lot faster…i think i gained about 15-20k and reduced latency by around 25ns.
Anyway, with the current ram settings, cpu stock, I’ve flown a few more flights yesterday, various lengths and routes, but tried to stick to roughly the same area of the ul (south east). No more freezes.
So fingers crossed… wherever was causing the problem, seems to be resolved.
Sound’s ike you’re getting there so good luck.
Like any new tech it may take a while and several updates til nirvana so keep on top of it and one day you will just think wow is this really happening? I know I do, my PC must be an embarrassment to some of those that spent thousands.
Nothing embarrassing about having a budget pc… way more embarrassing to have spent thousands and still bed plagued with issues haha
Like me last month with random CTDs mid-flight. Eventually found my RAM was erroring. Re-seated the DIMMs and all was fine until last week when I had two similar crashes in a short space of time. It’s been fine since but I hate being held hostage to the winds of fate every time I boot the sim. Not as bad as your issue, clearly, but given how much I’ve spent on that PC it does make me question my life choices.