SL will not even open now.

Oh I knew it, but I did it anyway. I saw all this about making sure my ATI drivers were updated before running the new Windlight. Stupid blonde me trusted it again, and I am a consistent zero for 19 on listening to Linden Technical talk. So now SL won't even get the window filled out, much less seeing a connect button. It draws the window for the SL viewer and crashes immediately thereafter. I barely can see the "Second Life" across the title bar. This is identical in Dazzle and WL and regular old SL. I asked someone what I have and here is the best I could come up with, most is pasted from my black shadow thread:

ATI Radeon X1400, the system says 256 MB of rams on the card itself
I upgraded today to the latest Catalyst Control Center and selected the standard settings, whatever it wanted.
(I later tried to go on and turn off anything that wasn't "application settings" (which I assume is Second Life, right?)with a friend's help). Still no change.
I tried to look for the older version, and it's not on Lenovo's site at all, and the ATI site has something but it says I can't install it and need to contact my manufacturer.

*Sigh*

I saw a few other threads here but not specifically what I was having. Any help anyone can provide will get you in the running for a free hugring, and my thanks. If you need more information, please ask.

I had this, it just kept crashing each time you tried to get to the log in screen yeah?

I installed older drivers which I had on my computer and I was able to get to the main screen again. But not all is well. Everything is SLOOOOOOOW! and unplayable.

But yeah, try installing older drivers. ATI catalysts are horrible. Get Ati Omega drivers, much better.

I had the same problem with my ATI/AMD machine, this was three weeks ago wednesday.(many had same issues same day).

LL suggested I update the ATI drivers, I did and still no go. Drivers and Software worked three weeks ago!

AMD 3600, 1gb ram, ATI 2600 HD pro.

yeah I cant get in at all. I put in my password and then stuck on the load screen. Gosh will they EVER get it right?

Believe it or not my problem was after update my desktop was 16bit color, not 32bit! Once set to 32, everything is OK!

I had this problem as well and read all the things you all were tryin'
low and behold the last thread i saw was about the color settings and BINGO! it had set itself to 16 insted of 32bit. one click of the mouse and i was on with no problems

Thx Karmic

You guys rock!!! I've spent the last two weeks trying to figure out why I suddenly stopped being able to log in to SL -- we upgraded memory, changed drivers, tried various versions, tweaked firewalls -- nothing worked -- it would crash right after the login would come up.

I just went and checked and I was set to 16 bits and changing it to 32 has allowed me to login again!!!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!!!!

Mara