Random Crashes. Yay!

Hi, I know you don't know me, and I know it's technically really impolite to ask for something on your first post, but oh well. Here goes.

I crash randomly if you couldn't somehow figure it out by the name of this thread. I thought that maybe this was caused by a hardware issue, because this starting happening after adding some RAM by a company I've never heard of. I removed the RAM chip in question, and that didn't seem to have helped. I've already contacted Tech Support, but I always like getting a second opinion.

Here's some basic info on my craptacular compy:

Processor: ~2.0 GHz, AMD, not sure what model
RAM: Now 510 Megs, should be 512, not sure what happened to those 2 megs. Was 1022 with the other chip. If you could tell me how to get back that 2 megs, I'd appreciate it. If there's a way at all.
Video Card: ATI VisionTek Xtasy Radeon 9550 (128 MB) Drivers up to date.
Sound Card: Realtek AC97. Drivers up to date. (I think)
OS: Windows XP with SP2. (Ewwww.)

Tell me what other info you might need.

Might be that RAM is damaged. Try running memtest. http://www.memtest.org/
Any errors change it out.

Hi, Elundur, welcome to the Forums! It is completely correct to ask for something on your first post, answering questions is (ostensibly) all we do here!

You were right in trying to get more RAM - running with only 512 is craptastic and it is not surprising that you crash. Two suggestions:

-- If you're not already doing it, try the Nicholaz client. Not only is his memory management a bit better, but also he has plugged some memory leaks that will very quickly force a low-mem box like yours to use large amounts of virtual memory. From then it's only a matter of time til failure. His blog is at http://nicholaz-beresford.blogspot.com/ ; there's a link on the right for the downloads. There's a Nicholaz version of every SL release, essentially. Pick the version corresponding to the SL version you want, and follow the install instructions, which are easy but a little unusual.

-- Are you using a cooling pad or station? Laptops have limited hardware graphics assist, so not only the video but the processor are usually running full tilt (check your CPU utilization using task manager to see yours). Cooling turns out to be a necessity with most laptops.

I've tried the Nicholaz client to no avail. It seemed to help for a little while, but it never stopped the crashes. I've also tried OnRez, but that appeared to make the problems worse. (And I didn't like the UI) It would crash sometimes if I brought up my map.

And no, I'm not using a cooling pad/station. I'm running it from a desktop. Whatever you were talking about sounds like something for a laptop.

This has nothing to do if its the RC, Wind light or a 3rd party client. I believe the memory might be the issue. I has this happen to me awhile back and it turned out the memeory was bad.