Killed two laptops days after downloading SL

One HP and one toshiba laptop, both purchased within the past year, are in for service after DL'ing SL. It started by just crashing the game after log on, then progressed to crashing the computer which later would restart over and over again without ever fully booting up. Has anyone had experience with this?

I can say a lot of things that aren't so great about SL, but it is just a user level application; it doesn't mess with your system files, and it adds no drivers. In short, SL just can't corrupt an entire machine.

I suspect that you were plugging these machines into an unsecured network where some machine elsewhere was looking for exploitable holes and took advantage of them. Reports from various geek sources report that a new machine on an unsecured net can be comprimised and trashed within minutes.

It wasn't SL. But you should probably read up on firewalls and ensure that you've got something enabled prior to plugging into the net.

Another possibility.. SL is very CPU intensive, so much in fact that it's the only program I've ever run that has made my CPU fan switch to high speed mode and stay that way until I closed the SL viewer.

It's possible that those notebooks couldn't handle the sustained heat causing a physical hardware problem. If that was the case, it would be related to poor notebook design. Did it have adequate airflow?

I would agree with that...either the CPU or GPU got too hot and got fried. Sounds more like the CPU than the GPU to me though. What are the specs on these systems?

Very true indeed Ive seen things like that happen with desktop computers too, if the computer doesnt have a lot of airing. Some computers isnt built for gaming, and overheat too much if you dont add some extra cooling system, my desktop runs SL always around 99% CPU usage all the time

I don't know about the GPUs, but Intel and AMD have put clock-throttling into their chips for a while now. You can literally run a P4 without a heatsink, it'll just run at 500MHz or so. So I doubt the CPUs are fried. Granted, other issues can arise from laptop heat if they are not allowed to cool themselves. Saw a laptop that was left turned on in the bag. The case and keyboard had literally *melted*.

Adding to what Ketra said, AMD and Intel also include thermal diodes on their chips. Unless both were earlier model Athlons/Durons (pre-Palomino/Morgan cores, which fry easily without cooling [trust me, I know about this]), they would shut down if they got too hot. On the other hand, in order to run SL at a playable speed, you need at least an 800mhz (they say) processor. I doubt that laptop processors can throttle down while running SL.

I don't know if any of this solves your problem, but it is something to think about.

It wasnt a question of the machine running too hot...and in fact she was on a firewalled network for at least one of the machines...SL was so intense she literally crashed every five minutes...once she stopped running SL the machine had noticable differences in speed and the amount of time it took to "think" about its next process...It literally slowed the entire computer down...I dont know jack about PC (Mac 15+ years yay linux) but i told her maybe the preferences were set higher than what the computer could handle...but im not sure you can really do this...seems that it was SL that crashed at least one of these (that i saw) machines...The computer seriously stopped running after not using SL for say...less than an hour...with no ability to restart it...maybe it was the CPU but it seemed unlikely that it was a heat problem...

my apple notebook occasionally runs at 59* celcius...and it never crashed as hard as hers did...

"One HP and one toshiba laptop, both purchased within the past year, are in for service after DL'ing SL. It started by just crashing the game after log on, then progressed to crashing the computer which later would restart over and over again without ever fully booting up. Has anyone had experience with this?"


Yep I have a desktop and the same thing happened to me o.O I never really figured out why, and I have 2 desktops, it only happened to one. The only thing I did was uninstall SL, leave the computer off for about a week or two, reinstalled, and so far it hasn't done it again. Strange, I thought it was just my computer!

The last time this happened to me my ram slot 2 on my laptop fried, was on SL too lol. Also when this happened on my PC, my video card and ram were bad. SL is VERY hard on the computer and if your hardware cant handle it, your going see problems that may more permanent. I consider it a good stress test.

Yup, same thing happened to me. I have 2 desktops, and it only happened to one. And it was actually my gamer pc that it happened to. I never figured out why.. the only thing I did was uninstall SL, leave the computer off for about a week or two, and it hasn't happened since (its been about 3 weeks). Strange, I thought it was just my computer or something..

I had a similar problem a month or so back. I was running SL, Photoshop, with Winamp and Messenger in the background. My PC became sluggish while saving snapshots, so I tried to close programs to ease the burden, but it began to freeze. I had to hit the Reset button. My PC is built for gaming, so the only thing I could think of when it died, killing my almost full 40gig HDD and a 256mg RAM stick, was that I'd tried to save one too many high rez snapshots, overloading it... so this may or may not have been my own fault hehe... in any case, I lost alot of info, pictures and designs, at least half of it SL related, the HDD will not boot, it spins, the pc just won't detect it *cry* and it has been tested in 3 other machines to no avail.