What are device are you using for sound --the audio built-in to your motherboard (and if so, what brand is it)? --a USB-based audio source (like a headset)? --something else (like an add-on sound card)? Are you plugging your rudders into a USB hub (and if so, is it a powered hub?), or directly into ...

Your monitor questions are good ones. I personally can't see any difference between a 60Hz, 100Hz or even 120Hz refresh-rate in a flight sim (at least, not with the sedate aircraft I fly). A higher refresh rate does indeed make a quite noticeable difference in FPS-style games. If you're going to be ...

With SSD drives (or better, M.2 PCI-based SSD drives) I don't think a second drive is really necessary -- but that assumes you're willing spend the bucks for a 1TB-ish SSD. I run two drives in all of my sim PCs, with a very fast M.2 SSD (but pretty small, only 256GB) as my system drive and that's wh...

From a hardware perspective the only thing that even remotely might affect a new build is how much RAM you buy for the system. Up until v4, there was pretty much no point in buying more than 16GB -- Prepar3D could only use 4GB of that. With a 64-bit address space you literally cannot buy enough memo...

Yes. See: http://www.aero.sors.fr/navaids3.html

-M.

The original SPAD works as well. It's less flexible, but MUCH easier to install and configure. I've been using loads of Saitek gear in my sim forever and am a pretty experienced flight simmer. Every time I try to move from the original SPAD to Spad.Next I end up throwing up my hands in frustration a...

It's a little hard to respond to this question without understanding what exactly you're asking. The off-the-cuff and probably naive answer is: get a bigger drive and clone your existing drive to the bigger drive. The software to do cloning is likely provided with the drive. If not, there are plenty...

My question is, what should i do to get a a decent HD/4K display to get the quality view for the upcoming P3Dv4 for VFR flying at low altitudes? This is a pretty complicated topic, with no single, succinct answer. First, some basic stuff about monitors: There are sort of four major things that affe...

Your proposed configuration will be totally fine. Any motherboard you choose, as long as it's compatible with your CPU, has an M.2 socket for your system drive, and a is name brand (Asus is quite good, for example) is going to be fine. The GTX 1080 will easily handle a single 4K display (and the pro...

If this is a fresh install of Windows, I think you're going to have to run the full installer. Using the component installers (which is what I suspect you're doing) only works after the initial full installation.

-M.

And do the devices on BOTH hubs all stop working when the problem manifests? --and what is the current rating of the power supply for each of your two hubs? (it will be printed on the PS itself, something like 5V DC / 5.1A (or whatever yours says). Also, are the hubs plugged into USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 ...

"Calibration". Mmm hmm. :-)

So is everything looking better now?

-M.

There are a few different things going on here. First, simconnect itself is not installed by default on a new installation of Prepar3D -- the simulator doesn't need it to run. They have provided a bunch of installers for different versions of simconnect, though. You can find those installers in <P3D...

Are you using a powered hub, or are these devices plugged directly into the back of your PC.

This still sounds like a USB power problem, but if you're plugging directly into the back of your PC then that's not likely to be the issue.

-M.

If you're having to pull the devices out and replace them to get them to work, something is wrong. I have 11 USB devices across 2 powered hubs and I never have to unplug/replug them for P3D/FSUIPC to recognize them.

Have you disabled 'enhanced power managment' on your USB ports?

-M.