Odd problem with 7300GS and Flight Simulator X

[Spontz]

Greetings,

I'm having a strange problem with a system built around a 256 MB 7300GS (with a 2.8 GHz P4 and 1 GB RAM) when trying to play MS Flight Simulator X. The game will minimize itself (not crash) to the desktop after about ten minutes. It's still running, and can be re-entered, but it will then re-minimize itself after about another ten minutes (the interval isn't exact).

I've never seen anything like this before. Is it the graphics card? Something worse?

 

[BustedSony]

Greetings,

I'm having a strange problem with a system built around a 256 MB 7300GS (with a 2.8 GHz P4 and 1 GB RAM) when trying to play MS Flight Simulator X. The game will minimize itself (not crash) to the desktop after about ten minutes. It's still running, and can be re-entered, but it will then re-minimize itself after about another ten minutes (the interval isn't exact).

I've never seen anything like this before. Is it the graphics card? Something worse?

Did you disable screensaver and make all power-saving functions "never"? Also a full screen program minimizing can mean something else is taking the focus, an ethernet function call or some such. No, it's nothing to do with the video card.

 

[Spontz]

I'm glad it isn't the card; I didn't see how it could be, but I've run through every other possibility of which I'm aware.

Nothing else pops up, there's no screen saver (the monitor shuts off after 20 minutes of inactivity, but that's all).

Also, I've just discovered that this only LOOKS like the game is minimized. You have to hit the Esc key to pull up a game menu to get it back on-screen. The desktop is visible, but it's as if it's still in the game; I can't click desktop shortcuts or the start menu. (This is on my father's computer, with his game; it looks like it's minimized and I didn't think to try to run another program from the desktop when it does this until just now.)

 

[belvdr]

I was using avast antivirus and that caused it for me. Very annoying.

 

[Spontz]

I never did figure it out. It was set up on my father's computer (he's the pilot in the family) and after trying everything imaginable and everything suggested on several forums... nothing. Except that the problems got worse.

At some point, uninstalling FSX did something weird to the sound, so now there's no sound in Microsoft games and in certain other applications.

So we've given up and the game is being returned. Thanks for trying to help.