Crash / freeze problem

I have recently started trying Second Life but I find that the PC freezes (no response to mouse or keys) then the screen goes blank. I can still hear sound. This happens after 10-20 minutes. The only way out is to turn off the main switch and restart.

I have removed all dust so it is not overheating.

I have a P4 340GHZ, 2GB ram, ATI Radeon 9600 graphics card.

Any ideas?

Removing all the dust from inside your computer is always a good thing. What it does is takes the one, most common, contributor to heat related problems which is dust being sucked into your case and settling on the components. Dust acts like an insulator and will trap and hold heat to anything it gets on......enough if it and components that generate heat cannot properly radiate that heat away. But, having no dust in your case does not mean you cannot have heating problems. Graphics cards and CPU's are about the biggest heat generators in any computer. The harder they have to work to do their job the more heat they generate. SL is an extremely graphic and computational intensive program.........it works both your CPU and GPU very hard. They will get hot with or without dust. All CPU's and most (probably all) high performance graphics cards have fans designed specifically for cooling the chips just because of that fact. A properly ventalated case with all the fans operatiing properly will usually not have heat problems (as long as the dust is kept to a reasonable level).

I just told you all that because your problem does, in fact, sound like a heat issue. It could also be something else, such as your graphics card (or even your CPU) being on the verge of failure.......but that's not the most likely problem. Check to make sure all your fans are operating correctly. Especially check the fans mounted on your CPU and GPU (if it has one). If all your fans are working as they should, then you will have to seriously look at a pending failure of some kind..........likely culprit would be the graphics card.

I tend to agree with Peggy about the heat being a likely suspect. Get some software to monitor the temperatures in your computer. GPU-Z and Speedfan should do it. At least that way you can rule heat out as a problem if nothing is wrong.

Wires can block fans. Make sure they're all out of the way.

Thanks for the ideas. I have had my suspicions about the graphics card and this is a replacement of one that failed before. I tried the two utilities you mentioned but i don't think either report the temp or fan speed on the graphics card. CPU looks fine - I did thoroughly clean dust from the heatsink,, CPU fan, power supply fan and (as far as I could see) the fan on the graphics card.

I think I will just have to wait until it falls over and replace it.

Since loading the new SL viewer, it seems to run ok but I do notice it slows up easily and the recommended graphics settings are all low suggesting its at the limit of what this card can do.