I recently brought a rare graphics problem to Captain Sim's attention, and I would like to shed a little more light on the situation. The "graphics pole" seems to be inconsistent, as the right conditions on the same computer that was having it make it go away. Upon a little more research and flying, I ran into a new problem. When landing, FSX will stop responding for up to 10 seconds about 2 seconds after the tires chirp. I tried different settings (i.e. On Vatsim, Off Vatsim, Full Screen, Windowed) and it happened with all those settings. When I turned off my Antivirus (in this case, Norton 360) it stopped.  haven't recently experienced any more graphics errors after rebuilding my FSX configs once again (the start ->search -> %appdata%\Microsoft\FSX folder making sure to back the dll.xml and exe.xml.) and the Documents\Microsoft Flight Simulator X Files\logbook.bin. If you're not into doing FSX missions or using the built in time log, rebuilding this file can every so often prevent fsx freezes/crashes

So, I also recently began to experience FSX instability (not related to any CS addon, just a fragmented hard drive). I ran a program called UltraDefrag and had it optimize my hard drive, which repositions the files on the physical drive (won't affect electronic file names and locations, it's a great thing to do) and FSX began to run well again.

The bottom line is -
-Disable your antivirus when running FSX EVERYTIME to prevent FSX crashes/freezes
-Use a good defrag program (either free or pay) to defrag and optimize your hard drive. Defragging I would do once a week (leave it running overnight) and optimization is okay every couple of months. That can take a while depending on your hard drive space and how fragmented it is
-Delete and rebuild your FSX roaming folder (%appdata%\Microsoft\FSX making sure to back up the dll.xml and exe.xml to save your addons. Just put them back in the same folder after deleting it and running fsx)
and your Computer and FSX should run smoother, faster, and without errors.

My System Specs for Informational Purposes


(EDIT) Sorry about the double signature folks, it was an "oops"

I actually find it to be a good antivirus. It works well for me. With N360 you can right click the norton icon in the taskbar and go to disable Sonar, disable autoprotect, and enable silent mode or something to that effect. I've actually used gamebooster, and with the amount of tweaking and optimization  I've already done on my computer, it proved useless.

Like I said sir, to be perfectly honest, I'm really not that worried. I've run it with and without it, so, if I get a chance later tonight, maybe I'll give it a try, but please let's not turn this into a Norton bashing. I read the post, and I will try Kaspersky, see if that's any better. If seems that Norton isn't so good after all, but for now, all seems well. Thanks for your concern.

Well, I'll think I'll stick with Norton for now. Like Markoz said, it's better now than it was, and I've yet to be attacked by something Norton didn't block, so, I'm not really in the mood to change antivirus. Thanks for the suggestions though. I guess my whole post here was a waste of time then huh.

Thanks Markoz, I added a poll to see what kind of support I should focus on.

Thanks for your work, Collin.
Every work is useful here, even if it turns out to be less amazing than one initially thought.

Ok, you could use small font letters on the thread title next time or so  , but your investigations are always appreciated by the folks reading through the forums I think.

Only completely silent members don't offer new knowledge and findings, all others do.