SL crashing with new graphics card

Hello, I was wondering if some technical expert people can advise me with a problem I'm having with my brand new PC (I'm not a novice with computers but neither am I very expert with issues of this nature).

When it runs SL for the most part it's working beautifully, and I have such a huge improvement in framerates and general performance compared to my (5 year) old laptop, even on ultra settings (although I've toned that down to medium).

The problem I'm getting now is that a few times in each session, SL will shut down (the screen goes black) and a little message box says that the nVIDIA Graphics card has had an error and has recovered. However the SL viewer (and I'm using the latest Release Candidate Viewer) is unable to recover and is "not responding". I then have to open Task Manager, end the program and then relog, at which point it works well until next time. It's not happening in a constant fashion, and I can still use SL without too much disruption but it's a bit odd, and I don't understand why this should be.

The rest of my computer experience aside from SL (including some quite memory-intensive video games) are working without a single glitch, it's just SL that's crashing a few times each of my SL sessions.

Is this likely to be something in the computer (graphics card/drivers/Vista/compatibility) or is it to do with the Viewer?

The PC is a modern (and as I say new) computer with the following specs: -

Intel® Core™ 2 Quad Q9550 Quad Core Processor(2.83GHz,12MB Cache,1333MHz)
64 bit Windows Vista
ASUS P5QL Pro Mainboard - Intel P43 - Intel Core™ 2 Duo/ Quad/ Extreme - ATX
8192MB 800MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM
512MB nVIDIA GeForce 9800GTX Graphics card

etc etc, I think that's the important part....(please let me know if you need to know something else).

I would be very grateful for any advice offered!

Many thanks in advance.

Turn off Aero, and the problem should stop. Aero is known to cause exactly the problem you described. If you haven't experienced with any other 3D apps besides SL, consider yourself lucky. SL triggers the issue more than most, but they all do it.

Aero is pretty enough, but it should have been left on the drawing board a bit longer before release. It's not stable.

If you're using Aero because you don't like the Vista Basic theme, you can download a free patcher called VistaGlazz, which will remove Microsoft's locks, so that you can use custom themes. DeviantArt has some good ones, or you can make your own.

If you've already got Aero disabled, and the problem still persists, then I'd say maybe your graphics driver is corrupted. Uninstall it, reboot to safe mode & run Driver Cleaner, and reboot normally & reinstall. That's the only way to clear up all traces of a bad driver.

Thanks for your suggestions.

Unfortunately turning Aero off didn't help.

I did as you suggested and removed/installed the latest driver and it still doesn't help: -
Version: 182.08
Release Date: 03.03.2009
Operating System: Windows Vista 64-bit
Language: English (International)
File Size: 129 MB

I'm crashing sometimes every minute, sometimes a bit better, but basically it renders my great new computer unusuable for SL

Any other suggestions?

Try this....

Edit....Preferences...Graphics...hardware options.....and pull your "texture memory" back to 256.

It has helped others that I know with the same type of issue....its worth a shot.

DoC

Thanks for the reply. It didn't work, but it got me thinking...

I remembered on my old computer the "Enable OpenGL Vertex Buffer Objects" option in Preferences > Graphics > Hardware Options would cause spikey random shapes to occur. Although this wasn't happening with the new computer, I went an unchecked this and "so far" it seems that it's a lot more stable. I may have found the solution to my problem!

Thanks for the reply. It didn't work, but it got me thinking...

I remembered on my old computer the "Enable OpenGL Vertex Buffer Objects" option in Preferences > Graphics > Hardware Options would cause spikey random shapes to occur. Although this wasn't happening with the new computer, I went an unchecked this and "so far" it seems that it's a lot more stable. I may have found the solution to my problem!

Interesting. Let us know how well that works out. VBO incompatibility is generally an ATI problem, not an nVidia problem. If this does end up working for you, it would be the first I've heard of VBO's having caused a problem in SL for nVidia hardware.

Have you tried reinstalling your graphics driver yet, by the way?

Yes I did the graphics driver uninstall/reinstall...that didn't help.

Hmm I may have spoken too soon about my tactic....I had a good several hours and compared to just before I took off that option, when I was crashing within 1 minute of logging on each time, it seemed excellent....

I've started to crash again, not as bad as that but bad enough.

You're probably right about it being unrelated

I had this exact problem, and it was the power supply. You might want to look into that, the problem is that power supplies are the hardest thing to detect that are dying. Took me an RMA, and several calls to EVGA to narrow down to the power supply. I got a new one, and have never had that problem again.

Hmm it better not be the power supply as it's a new comp! I'll take a look into it though, thanks for the tip.

If this computer is an off the shelf computer it's possible you power supply is not hefty enough for that 9800GTX card. If I remember correctly from my "shopping" for that exact same card it's minimum PS requirement is 500 watt. If you put the 9800GTX in after you bought your computer I'd almost bet you do not meet that minimum. If the computer manufacturer added the card (or bundled it with your system) they may have "overlooked" that requirement too..........though you would have a leg to stand on if they did. Computer manufacturers are notorious for doing only what they can get by with..........and power supplies seem to be the least of their worries (something I find hard to understand since PS's are one of the least expensive components in a computer).

Just because it's new, doesn't mean that it works. I had a new PSU that died 1 month later after buying it. The problem with PSU's is they are probibly the hardest thing to diagnose in a computer as failing

A lot of intermittent run-time issues are related to an underpowered or failing PSU and it's one of the quickest, easiest things to diagnose if you have access to other PSUs of like-wattage and greater wattage.

If you have gaming friends (or people with new desktops they've bought recently) it should be easy to find a PSU with the same wattage and one that is at least 50w greater so you swap them and do a test run. Try swapping like for like first to see if you just have a wonky PSU. If the replacement fails, try a higher wattage PSU and see if that helps.

Just explain to your friends/family where to look and see what wattage their PSU is (or better, offer to come look for them) and if it's a good fit for your system, bring your case and cables and utilize their PSU/monitor/kb/mouse to do some quick tests when it's convenient for them.

The best part is you can rule out the PSU issue fairly quickly and cheaply or find out you just need a replacement (warranty) PSU for your new system. If you added the beefy video card to a stock system they probably won't replace it if the system runs fine with the onboard video and stock PSU, but if you got the card in the system and find it won't run without an upgraded PSU then you should get a replacement unit of the correct minimum wattage.

Also make sure your video card drivers AND motherboard chipset drivers are up to date (and do some research online before you upgrade the chipset drivers just in case there are known unresolved issues with your particular video card/drivers combo).

Also, I've been in SL since 2/2004 and there have been periods of days, weeks, months even where I had tech issues that prevented me from using the SL client without crashes. I'm currently having another spell of that this week. YMMV but sometimes you just get the next SL update and things improve overnight.

I'd switch to Vista 32 for SL first. You can create a dual boot easy.. Google sround

I have the same setup as you, runs solid and never have issues

Thanks to Spike Linden, I may have actually found the problem even if I don't know how to treat it yet. The issue stems from the nvlddmkm running up an error in Vista, called a Time Detection and Response (TDR) and is a known issue with nvlddmkm and Vista.

There are lots of different solutions posted on the internet, not a consistent theme and I'm not a very technical minded person. Has anyone else had this problem and fixed it, and if so how?

Any suggestions?