Please help, dear collective wisdom!

I have just bought and installed a fancy new Dell computer with plenty of RAM and other SL requirements, and am having all kinds of problems with SL now. I freeze, I crash, things go all blurry, I find myself naked and bald! GASP!! Having big problems trying to teleport. Sometimes everything is fine for about a minute, and then it goes all bonkers again. Does anyone have suggestions for what could be wrong and how to fix this incredibly awful problem? I am having SL withdrawl symptoms already and I only got the new computer last night! (how pathetic is that?)
Seriously need some hand holding on this matter as I am very much not a computer geek (bet you could tell that from this post). Thanks to any and everyone for helpful suggestions. I wish Linden had a live chat or telephone help line.
All best to everyone, and happy in-world experiences to all,
Artemis Felwitch

Is it using on board graphics or a low end video card?

Try turning down your graphics settings and see if that helps.

How much RAM do you have? I would guess a new computer, you are running Vista, you will want at least 2GB of RAM using Vista, more if you can swing it.

What are your actual system specs? And have you double checked that your computer wasn't shipped with an older version of the graphics card drivers?

Hi Ann: I'm at work and don't have the specs here with me. Will have to answer this from home. However, my computer handyman was the installer and I'm sure he would have said something if they (Dell) had delivered anything other than what was ordered and expected. Let me say that when the thing is working in SL, the graphics are splendiferous!!!
It's just that I keep freezing, crashing, etc. so frustrating (sure you know that drill)
thanks.
Artemis

Brand new big fancy video card doesn't necessarily mean it's the best card for running SL. Try to be as spacific as you can here so folks can help better.

When you're in world...go to help......'about second life' and you will see all your computer specs in the box that pops up.......

Other things I can think of with a new PC that might be borking SL are your firewall.....they can totally interrupt programs you are running while connected to the web.....also...... with a new PC you may well have a lot of stuff that runs upon start-up that you do not need. You can eliminate certain things in start-up so you don't have umpteen million programs running in windows. (is the computer slow to boot up? that can be a sign that it's trying to start up too many things) And... if that's the case those programs may be taking priority. There's a way to make it so SL has priority when you're running it.....I'll have to double check that...a friend told me once. What that means, is if you are running SL....and maybe have a web page up...or are working in photoshop......you can set it so more juice is going to running SL, so to speak.

Definitely play with graphics settings......keep your draw distance low.... mess with the other sliders to see the effect they have on performance.....you'll be able to tweek it to where it runs at optimum with the hardware you're using.

You can change the settings before you login in click edit on top of screen or ctrl p go to
graphics.
You can do this inworld too.
There is sliders on the version in 1.19.1 (4)
Top has highest setting of Ultra.
I can use Ultra and I have 2.533 ghz, 768 ram and Geoforce 6200 series graphic card but I am using XP.
I turn down/ off the draw distance, particles, flexible and I only keep sky high so I can see clouds and depending on what I am doing I may turn up Avatar to highest settings if I am photographing clothing or Avatars.
If I am working on objects I turn down Avatars to lowest settings and turn up Objects.
If I am in busy place or want to focus on building that requires higher fps I slide ultra to left side down to lowest settings but shapes of prims often look different so often I keep it at medium and turn off things like trees, terrain, sky, avatars and increase objects.
I find trees, flexible, terrain and high draw distance is often not needed most of time.

Milla: would I have a firewall on a home computer? I thought that was the sort of thing that companies use to protect their proprietary stuff? *confused*
Anyhow thanks for the info and suggestions. I'll get busy with it all when I get home.
Artemis

You almost certainly have a firewall in place, plus a lot of other unnecessary junk that is slowing your computer down. ALL computers from the major manufacturers like Dell and HP come with tons of "bloatware" and every flinkin', CPU-cycle-stealin' option enabled.

My Resident Geek takes a day off from his day job whenever we get a new machine, rolls up his sleeves, and starts trimming away fat.

I just wanted to add to my sad tale below that I'm also having a problem with my inventory not loading. It says "loading" in front of items in the list (which of course is way too big), but then it just sits there and doesn't actually load.
Oy, what a mess.
Artemis

Type something into the inventory search bar...that will often kick it into gear.

Not only does your computer come with a firewall set up, but a firewall is a necessary and vital feature. You do not want to run without one. You may want to use a different firewall than the one installed with your computer, or you may rely on a hardware firewall instead of a software firewall, but you must have to have a firewall.

If you have not configured your firewall to allow Second Life to run yourself, then that's going to cause you problems right there. Second Life won't work with your firewall by default. You need to give your firewall specific settings to allow Second Life to operate.

Somewhere on the Secondlife site, there is a FAQ for configuring your firewall to allow Second Life to run. It's not hard to do. I'd link the FAQ for you, but unfortunately, the Secondlife site is down for maintenance at the moment.

In Windows XP, there is usually a little red-shield icon sitting in the system tray (bottom, lower-right of the screen, beside the time). Click on that, and you'll see whether you have a firewall running. You can also access this with Control Panel - Security Center.

You could also have a hardware firewall running. (For example, I have cable internet, which is plugged into a wireless router that allows all the computers in the house to access the internet. The wireless router has a firewall built into it.) If that's the case, you may have to configure your router as well (which operates along the same principle as configuring the firewall in your operating system; you'll just have to open up your router manual to see how to do it for your router. My router even comes with pre-configurations for popular games; Second Life isn't one of them, though.)

If you changed just your computer, and not the means by which you connect to the internet (that is, no new router or internet service), and Second Life worked fine before on your old computer, then you probably don't need to worry about configuring a router or something like that.

I second the motion for installation of the drivers. Also, can you post you system specs here when you get home or when you find them? Dell probably shipped you exactly what you ordered, but performance is sort of a weird combination of all those parts and how they work together, and I've seen some strange combos from the big manufacturers. The big ones are RAM, video card and processor.

How are you connecting to the internet? Cable? DSL? etc? Is your bandwidth throttled by your ISP? Also, which version of the viewer are you running?

And most new Dells are shipping with Norton Anti-Virus. Uninstall that resource pig and go get McAfee or Grisoft's AVG.

My computer got IMMENSELY better after Norton went bye-bye.

McAfee caused problem with SL for me and absolutely killed WoW when I tried to go into instances.

I tested demos on all of the bigger name anti-virus software and Kaspersky wound up working the best for me.

Both Norton and McAfee have been more annoying than helpful for me. They both do a fine job at keeping out the viruses. The problem is that they both like to tell me I'm wrong when there's a program that I actually want to run, and will fight me on every step of the way when I try to run it.

For both progams, the model of perfect security is not allowing your computer to have an internet connection, ever. And if there is an internet connection, certainly don't let any data flow one way or the other over that connection.

My anti-virus program of choice is Avast. It's free, it works (I've used it to clean a friend's spy-ware laden computer), and it rarely annoys to the extent that Norton and McAfee did.

Norton and McAfee can both probably be configured so they won't fight the programs the user wants to run as much. For me, I like installing an anti-virus program that works exactly the way I want and expect it to upon installation, rather than spending hours figuring out optimal configurations.

/me Smiles: Possible I'm totally wrong here, but I had probs with new Dell pc too.. XPS 420 880gtx (or Something like that) Nvidia card (couldn't even open control panel.. Another story tho )

Techie friend sorted it for me I just txtd him regarding this post, reply was...
control panel►power options►set to high performance

Said to say it helps with game playing on PC... Lol as if SL is a game!?! /me Winks

Marie.

Step 1: update your graphics drivers -- 98% of the time it will be this. Bypass Dell and go to either ATI or NVidia's site and find the latest drivers there.
Step 2: did you update your graphics drivers?

P.S.: It is unlikely to be anything else, forget fiddling with anti-virus, firewalls etc.

P.P.S: Norton is sluggish bloatware (after 3 years of using it, just got tired of it), McAfee adds a lot of time to opening files. I use Micrsoft OneCare -- surpisingly lean -- for my wife and my machines, for my other machines I use AVG Free -- it is hard to find at the grisoft site, but it does exist. OneCare is worth it because it requires less work that AVG (popups etc), has a firewall etc.

Hi all: going to try to clear up some questions that have been asked so that we can get to the bottom of my SL problems vis a vis my new computer. Here's what I've got:
Intel Core 2 Duo CPU E4500 2.20 GHz
3.00 GB RAM
Nvidia Geforce 8600GT (is this my graphics card? I think so)

I do not have Norton on my computer as far as I can tell.
My ISP is RCN and I have cable modem.
I tried searching my inventory instead of having it all load up.. No go on that
My avatar seems frozen.. can't manage to get any shoes on her, though her clothes and hair are back.

So frustrated I'm ready to cry.

I turned the graphics down to mid from high.
I did the power performance thing.
I downloaded and installed the latest drivers for the Geforce 8600 GT from Nvidia..

what next??? Poor Artemis still has no shoes!
sadly yours,
Artemis's creator

I'm not a technical person, but it really sounds to me that the problem is related to data-transfer, in that your computer is not communicating with the Second Life servers.

The inability to load inventory is the main clue to me. If you can't load inventory, then also things that your computer needs to read from your inventory (hair, skin, clothing) aren't going to be available. There are different things that could freeze your avatar, but the fact that your movement directions aren't getting to the SL server, and SL server updates of your movement aren't getting back to your computer, could be a cause.

It also sounds like the problem I had a month ago, during the onset of some of Second Life's grid problems. As it turned out, the problem was on Linden Lab's side (screw-ups with its asset servers), and of course a lot of people were affected like I was. Though that problem turned out to be on Linden Labs's side, my symptoms were the same as you are describing, and the principle causing them was the same: My computer and the Second Life servers were not communicating properly.

When I did a support ticket on my problem, the first recommendation that Linden Labs spat back was that I should check my firewall settings. (Even though I had mentioned explicitly in the support ticket that I knew the firewall was not the problem.) Even though that answer was wrong in my particular case, it might be the right answer for your case.

If you have a computer, and you yourself have not configured your firewall to run with Second Life, then I'm 99.9% sure that your firewall settings are incorrect. Even if your firewall settings are not the entire cause of your problem, you need to set them sooner or later, because they will cause problems. I don't actually know if it's possible to run Second Life through a firewall without configuring the ports with the firewall to allow it.

Of the possible things causing it, my first guess would be a firewall interfering, most likely the software firewall installed on your computer. So if you haven't investigated that, I'd recommend strongly putting that at the top of your priorities.

Updating your drivers never hurts. Even if setting your firewall solves your problems, a new problem could develop any time if your drivers are out of date. In fact, any time a new SL viewer has introduced a new problem for me, updating my drivers has solved the problem about half the time. It could be graphics card drivers, audio drivers, or chipset drivers that do the trick.

Again, even though I'm not the most technically inclined person, I don't see anything about the hardware that you describe causing the problem. In fact, you have a pretty high clip of RAM, which should help your SL use. From what I have read, nVidia video tends to work pretty well with SL (at least, as well as any graphics card can.) Your processer specs look fast enough to run SL well- I've run SL on lesser than that.

I have two computers that fall well below the minimum specs required to run SL. I when I run SL on them, they are very slow. But there are no freeze problems or inventory problems like you described. In fact, inventory load is no slower on my lesser computers- all the slowness comes from loading and drawing objects and textures. Movement is choppy, but it happens- I don't freeze.

So, even though I'm not the most technically inclined person, I've had lots of problems with computers and have been forced to find ways to fix them. That's why I suggest that setting your firewall to work with SL has the highest chance of making things work for you.

Go to www.secondlife.com, click on the Knowledge base, then do a search on "firewall." The first topic tells you how to configure your firewall. The second tells you how to configure your router firewall (if that's a problem with you; if you've used SL on an older computer using the same internet connection you're using now, then that's probably not a problem). The last two topics tell a bit more about what problems a firewall can cause for Second Life, if not appropriately configured.

You haven't said but I'm assuming your computer has Vista as it's operating system. You adjust your computer for performance but going to:

Control Panel
Click "Performance information and tools
on the left side of your window you will see sub catagories.......Click Advanced Tools
A window will open with a list of options.......Click "Adjust Appearance and Performance of Windows"
On the "advanced tab" check the option to "adjust for best performance of PROGRAMS"

That will turn off a lot of Vista's bells and whistles that eat up resources of your Vista machine. Look around in that "Performance Informaation and Tools" page.......you can shut off a lot of useless background programs and help the ovrall performance of you machine in ever area.

Your graphics card will handle SL with ease......it's the same one I use. But, I'm sure that you are not running the lastest drivers for that card. Go to nVidia's website and download the latest drivers for it. Once you do that go to your nVidia control panel and set the card for "quality" (not performance). That will give you the best the card is able to produce. 3 gigs of RAM on a Vista machine using is SL is enough (at least for now....LOL).

Hope I've helped a little.

I've heard this said several times in the two years I've been reading the forums. And, as for something to check to if you are having problems staying connected to SL, looking at that possibility is certainly worth the effort. But, to say that you MUST configure your firewall to specificly allow SL to run sooner or later or you will have problems is more than a little bit of BS. Since I've been playing SL early October, 2005 I've had 6 different computers successfully able to log into and stay logged into with almost no problems at all. I've had various firewalls installed.......Zone Alarm, McAfee, Avast, AVG, some off the wall firewall I've never heard of supplied by my ISP (I forget the name), and now I'm using Vista's built in firewall. I've never had to once configure my firewall for any program to run.......SL included. I also happen to have a hardware firewall with my router (Linksys) that I've never had to configure either.

It's something to check since it's evidently something that can cause problems for some.....but to say it's the problem is just not necessarily true. I don't believe that the firewall settings are incorrect......but check it to be sure. Besides, if your firewall is interferring with your SL, the most likely problem you will encounter is staying connected. Not what the OP is experiencing.

Still not working.. if anything it's just getting worse. I changed the thing to high performance and adjust to best performance and adjusted the graphics down to medium.. tried to make sure the firewall settings were as they should be (with my pathetic understand of what it should be)...
nothing is helping so far.
I am really at a loss.
Anybody know anyone in the Boston area who has knowledge of this stuff and can help me?
thanks
Artemis (at wit's end)