System Help - SL Freeze Up

I got a new power source, 500. I put in the new graphics card, ATI Radeon 1650 512MB as well. My system is 1gig.

Prior to this upgrade my card was over heating and the pc would just shut down, completly.

Now with the upgrade i go into sl and i am there 5 minutes and sl freezes up and the screen goes black. At that time i have to reboot as my pc does not respond. I set the graphics settings to custom and set most to low as the lag meter showed all in green (normal). I sat my avatar down and did not move the camera view. Low and behold, yes again, sl froze up again and the screen went black.

I installed all the new drivers for the card and all seems to be fine, but only when i try to use sl. I am using the old client as when i tried the new release it was doing the same thing. I thought to go back to the old sl client.

Now I am at a loss. Is my system with it's 1 gig too small for the 512 MB graphics card? or..

PLEASE HELP

j

Though I really don't think your problem is RAM related, that 1 gig might be a little low.....especially if you are running Vista (you would need at least 2 and 3 would be better). You discribe a sysetem lock up which is quite a bit more serious than a program crash. When you upgraded your power supply to 500 watts and put your new graphics card in did you blow out the case of computer well? You said your old card was overheating...........are all your case fans, CPU and graphics card fans working properly? Also, you said your computer would shut down completely with the overheating of your old card......to me that means your computer just shut off unexpectedly as if you unplugged it from the power source. When a computer does that (or even if you do it while your operating system is still running) there is a very real danger of important system files being damaged or corrupted.

Those are just the first few things that come to my mind. But, if you will list your computer specs for us maybe some more will come to me........more important, maybe someone else who frequents this forums will have some help for you.

XP home
P4 3.00GHz 2.99 GHz, 1.00 GB of RAM

I really do not know if that was overheating or what, that the card was doing before or if the card or power (300) i had before was just dying. The pc would automatically shut off as i was told that is a safety feature of the computer.

Yes, all fans are going good. the new card has a built in one that is also working.

When the pc shuts off or freezes up, I will reboot it, but then i shut it down again so programs can close properly. Just something I have always thought to be good practice.

I have not tried sl again since i posted here. A bit nervous to.

Thanks so much for your quick and detailed response

J

Okay...........so your computer is no longer "locking up". SL is crashing and you have to close it using the alt>control>delete combination. I was afraid you were getting a total loss of use of your computer or an unexpected shut down of the power to the system.

Okay...........go ATI's website and search for your new graphics card drivers. I use nVidia but I'm sure the process is very similar. Go to the driver download section of the site. Put in you card model number, operating system and any other information the search requests. You will get a list of available drivers for your card. Download the most recent to your hard drive (do not use any auto installation feature the website might offer). I've heard that ATI also has a program that completely removes older drivers (something I wish nVidia had). Look for it and download it if what I've heard is true. Then close the website. If you did get a driver remover, run it. If not then uninstall the old driver for your video card. You will have to reboot to complete the uninstall. When your computer boots up again Windows will "find new hardware" and want to search/install a driver for it. Don't do it..........close the dialog box. Then go to your downloaded driver and install it.

A thing that is probably important but I've never had a problem myself........shut down or disable your anti virus durring the installation of the new driver. And you will find your decktop will be all messed up because when you uninstalled your old driver Windows picked up some generic driver so you can see something......at some really screwy resolution (probably 640 x 480). You'll have to rearrange your desktop back like you want it.

And with XP 1 gig should be okay.........not great, but it should work. I would save a few pennies for another gig.

I will go there and get the driver remover. I have already downloaded the new drivers for the card right after the hardward install.

And yES the pc was shuting down completly with the old card and power. This is after 2 years of using sl.

ok runs off to the ATI site. thanks again..

i see a drivercleaner.net for $9.99. I will continue looking for a free one. ;/

ok well, bills first then i will have to invest in a cleaner. i do not see any free ones. ugh!

then just uninstall your old driver using "add remove". It will do the same thing except maybe some hidden files that are left. I doubt you will have much problems just doing that.

Heck, that's all us nVidia folks have .............LOL.

i see in Add/Remove;

ATI - Software Uninstall Utility
ATI Hydravision
AVIVO Codecs
ATI Display Driver -(does not specify if from old card or if this is the new driver i just installed)

I do not want to uninstall the wrong component.

thanks!

that "software uninstall utility" is what I was thinking of.......I think. Go to all programs and run it. You don't need hydrovision. All you need is the display adapter......that is the driver You can uninstall everything and it will not hurt anything. The uninstall utility should take care of you.

But make sure you have the new driver saved somewhere easy to find before you do the uninstall. It will make the install much easier since you will not have to go online to get it.

Edit to say. Go to ATI and get a fresh download of the driver. Uninstall that old one in your add/remove...........even if you just installed it. You want a clean installl without any remnants of an older (possibly corrupted) driver when you install the new one.

ok. when i went to the remove for the driver i saw the old ones in the list. i checked them and proceeded and restarted the computer. I guess its time to try sl? ok after some icecream giggles.

wish me luck, see ya back here. or there or.

it did the same thing. after a few moments of being in-world nothing was responding, shortly after screen goes blank and i have to hard boot. or whatever you call it. ugh!!!

i guess the only thing left to do now is find a friend with a pc i can download sl and go and remove all my objects from all the land and quit. i guess this game is for the elitis. all i can now say is why did i put so much time and money into something that really isnt real.

It sounds like you may have a hardware problem with your computer. I'd run a surface scan on your hard drive (right click on the C: drive icon in "My Computer" then select "tools" and use Scandisk).

Download Microsoft's memory diagnostic and check your computer's memory. You can get it here:

http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

There are other possibilities. The CPU may be overheating. SL will really tax a P4, and make it run hotter than most software will. The problem you were having with the computer automatically shutting down suggests this is a possibility. It could be something simply like a loose wire jamming the fan on the CPU.

I know this sounds silly, but also make sure the case fan or fans are installed in the right direction.

Just to note ATI has a built in driver remover for a long time now. No need to get a 3rd party driver remover. It is in add/remove programs... "ATI-Software Uninstall Utility". It is installed when you install ATI software. If you have a AMD chipset on your motherboard make sure you only uninstall the graphics drivers. It pops up a warning for this on my computer.

Also try Catalyst driver 8.5 instead of the newer ones as the new one's don't like SL.

This sounds like the CPU is overheating to me.

i tried both drivers. i tried uninstalling sl also after the new driver install. same as before. complet crash. i cleaned out the main fan of all dust and crap. all is spinning good and clean. ugh! this is so frustrating.

If you have a fan suitable for blowing into a computer you might try removing the case and see how it runs opened up with a fan blowing on it.

Does that video card require on power connector plugged in or two? ( I suspect one but can't hurt to ask.)

The surface scan is a good idea. I have actually done that when the computer was misbehaving and found some bad sectors and got my computer working properly again before. It may not work too often but it does sometimes.