Freezing problem - and I can't seem to access the Knowledge base

Hi all...

I posted this in General and now feel silly - so I'm reposting it here...

I've been having crash issues when I try to play SL. I'd really like to look through the Knowledge Base... but I can't. So I guess I have 2 problems - accessing the KB and my probelm within the game. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

When I try to access the Knowledge Base, (I try to log in to it) it says that it can't find my user name. (I've tried entering my username to have them send me a password - and it still can't find me!) I have no problems getting access to the game (logging in) or posting here - so I'm not sure what's going on.

I'm running SL on a p4 2.5 ghz with 2 512k chips of memory. I have a sound blaster sound card and a radeon 9500 pro video card, so my system is well within SL specs. But for some reason when I log in after a few minutes (sometime 5, sometime 20) my character will freeze. My mouse pointer is not frozen (I can move it around the screen) but I can't access any menu's and my character will not move.

edit: I'm using win xp and have direct x 8.0. I got a new driver from ati.com yesterday - so that's the latest & greatest.

It sounds like you hevent run windows update. THe latest version of DirectX is version 9.0a I believe and will probobally increase your graphics card performance because it is compatible with Version 9. Plus, IW (in world) press and hold Alt + 1 to open the connection status window (press and hole Alt + 1 again to close it) then post the Sim Ping and the Local (I think or the ping thats not the sim pint) Ping here, and Lindens may be able to look more closely at your problem. Im not sure as to how to solve that Knowledge base problem, that leaves me scratching my head... good luck!

I've had some problems with the KB also. I can login, but there's a link on the forum somewhere to a page in the knowlegde base, but when I try that it doesn't seem to work (can't find username)

Still can't get on the KB...

But I did end up fixing all my problems. I upgraded the soundcard and got rid of the pos dell "soundblaster" with the 1 1/2 year old (and will never be updated ) drivers.

Thanks for the suggestions!

I'm having the exact same problem with my Radeon 9500 Pro! Except I'm running a SB Live! sound card with the latest drivers (fresh WinXP install, only a couple weeks old.) Also tried the card in a brand new machine (new motherboard, cpu, processor) with the same freezing problem. It's totally baffling me....

Also, what new sound card did you upgrade to? And have you noticed the freezing in any other applications? RealOne can lock up my machine the same way, apparently the card has that Smoothvision thing to accellerate playback in RO.

nikos -

leaflover's problem was with a specific type of soundcard provided in dell OEM computers, thus that shouldn't be your problem... a lot of ppl are playing SL with a wide variety of sound hardware, and with the exception of the SB0200, none seem to be having problems.



i wouldn't call those the latest drivers, unless you went to creative's site and downloaded them yourself

go track down the latest versions of the following drivers and install them, then see if you're still having problems:
* ATi Catalyst drivers
* Motherboard chipset drivers
* SB Live drivers
* Network card drivers

also, is your system an OEM or custom-built?

My problems were twofold... one set of drivers that was too old - another that was too new And honestly - I think changing both solved the problem. The Dell had a proprietary SB Live! card (with no driver support) and the Radeon 3.2 catalyst drivers are not compatible.

I didn't notice any problem in *any* other game or application (EQ, Ragnarok Online, Morrowind, Diablo 2, Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, Dreamweaver, misc other stuff). I don't do a lot of media/real playing on this machine - so I never tried that.

Make sure you have the catalyst 3.1 drivers (not the 3.2) There's an issue (that I found documented here) with the 3.2 driver set. My card is brand spanking new and the 3.2 drivers are the one that shipped with it.

I ended getting the 3.1 set off the ATI site, (filled in the drop down boxes) but at the end (bottom) of the page there's a link for previous drivers.

I reinstalled the drivers (then when I still had an issue) upgraded my sound.

I'd try rolling back your driver set.

Good luck!

I went to the Catalyst 3.1 drivers on my main machine, the freezing problem still happened with SL, however with RealPlayer it seems to be alleviated.. except sometimes the video stops for a brief second and I hear a squeal, then play continues as normal. I'm going to try uninstalling the SB Live and make sure I have the absolute latest drivers.

I have a new machine which I just bought parts for that is using AC97 onboard audio, that has the same problems when I put the 9500 pro in it. (Asus A7V8X mobo) I'm going to try the 3.1 Catalyst drivers on that tonight. If I can get it to work.. I may just put my 7200 back in the old machine and leave it at that.

*crosses fingers...*