Classic "OMG I CAN'T DO ANYTHING" Problems

Ok, let me just give the run down of my problems. First of all, I'm better off posting my problems here than trying to look through the solution database, because I'd find better answers reading a non-brail newspaper being blind. I have accessibility to both wired and wireless connections, both of which work just as bad, neither seem to work any better than the other. I have successfully port forwarded all of the required ports for Second Life and my firewall allows Second Life entirely.

My computer specs:
Manufacturer: Dell
Model: Inspiron I1720
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T7300 @ 2.00GHz 2.00GHz
Memory (RAM): 2046 MB
System type: Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit
Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT
Graphics driver version: 7.15.11.7431
Network adapter: Intel(R) Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN

Now for the problems. For the record, I've yet to be able to get past the Orientation Island. When logged in, I either end up in the water or in the middle of the tutorial area, which is where I'm supposed to be, I think. I appear gray with only my hair visible, which isn't even my correct hair, like it's missing textures or something. Everyone else around me appears gray also. I have no forward or backward movement capabilities, however, I can turn left and right and look around. Half of the time, when looking at the Lag Meter (I think that's what it's called), it says that my network section is bad with over 600 ms ping. I guess that's all the problems that I can come up with right now because that's all I can get to. Please, any possible or complete solutions will be much appreciated. If you also havev this problem, please don't reply to my thread saying "ZOMG i haz dat sam promblim! how u fix dis?!" because once someone has read my topic, they don't need another person asking how it can be fixed, especially one that has no potential knowledge of the English language, or grammar for that matter. Also, if possible, posts like those will be reported.

Thank you,
Ross Penucca

Hi Ross..........welcome to SL

It sounds like you are experiencing connection problems. You say you've tried both the wired and wireless network to your router (I'm assuming you have a home network). When you tried that, did you try on the same computer or another one? I'm asking because if you used a different computer the problem points to your router and/or modem as a likely source of your problems. But, when I think of it, it still points that way.......LOL. The symptons you discribe are pretty much what I've experienced on occassion.

Rebooting your router and/or modem often corrects the problems........give it a shot.

Oh, I forgot to mention that. My girlfriend and I are both on the same network, right next to each other, in fact. Her computer works fine in Second Life, with the wired connection, I haven't tried the wireless connection, so I don't think it's a router issue. And thank you for the welcome. I reset the router and that didn't seem to help at all. My girlfriend suggested that I try updating my network card. Also, her Second Life works fine when she's wired, but doesn't seem to work when she's working on wireless. So I'll try updating my network card and I guess anything else while I'm at it.

Wireless and SL seem to have problems for many.

WOOT! We solved the problem it seems. I'm a VMWare user, which is a Virtual computer program that creates virtual network connections for Internet access with the program, they were notorious for ruining network connections for games for me, so I disabled those then my girlfriend realized that even though I was connected through ethernet, I still had my wireless adapter connected to my network, so I disabled that and it seems that that did the trick. If there is another problem that arises, I'll be sure to post here. Thanks again, Peggy.

I didn't do anything......you did it all

After I play for a while my screen monitor goes off automaticlly and I have to hold my start button down, restart it and do the same thing again. My monitor button goes orange when I try to turn it off and on it stays green then goes orange and the screen is black. Can someone help me? What do I do?

Is your monitor just going black or is your cmputer crashing and giving you a black screen? Sorry, I'm confused.

Hmm, well, everything is working correctly now as far as connection goes with one computer, however, now only one of us can successfully login. For example, my girlfriend can login fine and be able to move and everything, but if I login when she's already logged in, I run into the same problem that I did with my wireless connection being connected. Our wireless connections are both disabled and we're both connected through wires. Would this be a crappy router problem possibly, since both are correctly set up to play Second Life?

Ah ha! I win. It was because both computers were using the same port to connect with, I fixed it.

I see how you fix things now. You ask us and then it sparks an idea!!! Good to hear you go it fixed.

Argh... I love how things spring up when everything works fine all of a sudden... Now I get right into game and I get the notorious "The display driver has failed and has fully recovered" then that stops Second Life... It was working fine earlier today, I'll mess with my NVIDIA settings some.

Install an updated driver. Messing with settings won't fix that error.

I got that error a couple months ago. I stepped back one driver version and haven't seen it again.

I think I'm using nVidia's driver 169.25.

The only problem with that is that I have a Dell-installed NIVIDIA card, so the only drivers I can download are from Dell themselves and they only have one version available, then I used the Driver Update in the video card properties to update to newest driver version, so I don't think I would have any way of downstepping.

EDIT: Never mind, there's a 2007 release of a driver available to me, I'll do it later though. I've found out that I have lice which is bothersome, so I'm probably going to head to my girlfriend's mom's house so her mom can buzz my hair. Luckily I'm not too affected by the chemical that the adults inject into the bites that make your scalp itchy...

EDIT #2: Ok...with a buzzed head, I'm now connected fine with no graphics card problems, but the problem with both of us connecting at the same time still persists. The only problem I can think of is that with our router, we can only forward one port per IP address, but the router allows us to port TRIGGER ports for general usage for the whole network. Now, the only problem with this, which I've researched through, is that port triggering is not quite port forwarding, like it only forwards the ports for a limited amount of time or something like that. So whoever connects first connects fine and the other person to connect gets trapped in one spot like what happened to me before. Sooo, I'm not quite sure what to do now. X-x;

EDIT #3: Ok...when we both connect now, I've noticed that my Internet goes "AHHHH! *die*" So, I guess that our router sucks big cohones, which could be the fact of the matter since it's one that we're renting from Charter themselves, not one that we had bought ourselves, but we are going to buy an N router that has like 20 times the transfer rate of the normal 54 mb/sec or something like that, so hopefully that'll work. I guess we'll see. But here's my speed test with no SL clients running:

And here's my speed test with my SL client running:

So maybe it is the router, I'll be sure to get a router ASAP and hopefully that will improve the SL experience. >:3

Hi Ross! I use several Dell systems with Nvidia cards, for example, the Dell Vostro 1400 laptop I'm on right now. The Dell-provided driver for the GeForce8400M video that I downloaded when I first set the system up was equivalent to a 90-ish version nvidia driver, but I downloaded the latest 169-ish driver and it works just fine, however if I remember correctly, SL has issues with the 169 driver, but the 174 beta fixes the problems.. I'm almost 99% sure on the version numbers, but I'm 100% sure you can (and should) use a newer video driver than Dell provides.. Dell is VERY bad about updating video drivers especially...

Tas

Where do you find your drivers then? Because NVIDIA tells me to go to Dell's website to find my drivers. But anyways, I've stepped down a few versions and it works fine now, but the problem that remains now is that both of our computers can't be connected to SL simultaneously. We both use different ports to connect to SL: 13015 and 13025. All ports are successfully port triggered. We've come to the conclusion that the problem is the router, even though we're going to get a new router anyways because we have one that we're renting from Charter Communications. So I guess when we do get the new router, we'll try again; unless, however, someone comes up with a solution that doesn't involve the router speed or performance being the problem.

I use a Linksys Wirelesss G router that is about a year old.......works like a charm without fussing with port forwarding. In fact I would know how to do that if it did. Two computers can use SL without a hitch and no noticable decrease in speed.

The router is wireless, but I'm hard wired both computers. I'm wondering if because you are using one wireless connection and one wired connection that maybe thats the problem. Just a thought.

No no, we're both on wired connections now. However, there are two other computers on wired connections and another laptop that is using the router through a wireless connection, so it isn't just our two computers. So I'm guessing that all of the computers really drag down the router performance or the router just plain sucks. The reason is probably the latter of the two. Out of curiosity though, which Linksys router model do you have exactly?

Linksys router model WRT54GS.....also own a Linksys cable modem model BEFCMU10. I had D-Link for a while a long time ago and got Linksys and since then, I'll stay with them. Had a router that lasted for 5 years trouble free but kittens finally took it's toll.

Oh good, that's the exact one that we were planning on getting, lol. Alright, well when we get that, we'll try again. In the mean time, do you know off of the top of your head if there is a build mode simulator for SL by any chance? I want to learn and get experience for building houses to see if I could make an SL living. :3

I think if you google "Open Sim" there is a free sim you can download to your computer or something..........you might even try searching these forums for "open sim" or "openlife". There are several folks on these forums who have it..........I think most of the discussion is in the Resident Answers forums.

Ok, arigatou gozaimasu Peggy~ So helpful XD