I can't take it anymore!

This game is unstable as heck. I can't stay on for more than half an hour without crashing.

I have a the latest drivers, 512 mb ram, Athelon 3000+ 2.16 GHz, Nvidia Geforce 4 TI 4200 on a cable modem which far exceeds the minimum requirements.

Heya Reflexive, ah... are you just getting random crashes or something else? Like, if you leave your av in the wilderness (empty sim with only you there), and just walk around for a bit and don't impose any huge strain, does Second Life still quit unexpectedly and ask you to send in a bug report on the next startup?

Please describe more details of what you're experiencing.

If I'm in a room, not moving with one or person I crash, if I'm in a room, moving around I crash, I don't think I've crashed moving from one place to another and I do seem to crash more often when there's lots of people around but even if I'm alone I still crash.

Sometimes the report screen comes up, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it reboots my computer sometimes it just crashes to desktop.
Oh, and I'm running win xp.

Any other programs giving you lock-ups/restarts? Or is it solely SL?

*I only ask this because I use the infernal Athelon as well, and they heat up quicker than a microwave, also you may be having a RAM problem...since Athelon's are evilly picky as to what RAM they like*

But I have other games that run just fine like city of heroes.

Psh. Comparing CoH to SL is like comparing a goldfish to a monkey.

I have a suggestion which may be a coincidence, but it has helped me. I was experiencing the same problems since October with TSO and now with this game. Frequent crashes to desktop and frequent entire reboots. I also run on XP. A computer professional recommended that I uninstall the Windows Service Pack which was released this year, and which I downloaded and installed in October. After doing this, the next day I have had no further reboots, and that is after 2 straight months of it. Might be worth a shot. Perhaps something in the Service Pack that conflicts with these online games. You can find what you downloaded and installed under control panel, on the left "windows updates". It will take you to a website telling you what you updated and when. You can then go to add and remove programs and take them out. Good luck Worked for me so far.

I haven't installed any updates because I don't know how not to not install 2 and I had heard it does bad things to games.

You are sure they did not automatically install? Your system might be set up to download and install automatically. You can check by going to control panel and clicking the link on the left which says "Windows Updates". This will take you to a website that tells you what service packs might have been automatically installed.

I've been having major problems with my PC, had heard so much good feedback from SP2 that I guess i assumed I was dealing with a bad CPU or MB.

I'll be uninstalling SP2 ASAP.

What I notice about my crashes is that it's the PC powering off / resetting. It seems to usually only do it once the RAM cache is full and it needs to dump the cache and load from HD. (Like loading a new level on HL2, doing a snapshot in SL, etc)

I'll post how my deinstall goes. This would effectively add months to the life of my computer if it works. *prays*

Oh, and my PC:
Asus A7V8X-X mb, 1 gig pc3200 SDRAM, Athlon CPU, Nvidia 5800 256mb card.

Try defragmenting your harddrive. A fragmented hd can make windows unhappy, compound that with an already unhappy system do to bugs and you get a system that will through tantrums.

i'ld be very carefull on uninstalling service pack 2 i tried and had to take my system into the shop. apparetnly necessary info to allow windows to funtion is in those updates. i would also suggest double checking for spyware, malware and viruses and trojans

Nope, SP2 was NOT my problem. Still crashing. It's either:
- Hard drive failures (i've defragged, scandisked)
- IDE bus failure (though MB is new perhaps it was always borked)
- CPU cache failure

I'm gonna try to swap back in my old CPU and see if that fixes it.

You seem to be overlooking a hard drive controller issue - unless you are including that in the IDE bus failure category.

To test that, try swapping the CD ROM to the IDE Channel 1 Master Position and booting off that if you can.
Stick the hard drive in the IDE Channel 1 Slave Position..... I know, I know.... not recommended normally but this is for test purposes.

If you can boot with that setup, it is not the controller and most likely not the IDE bus/controller.

Yeah, I was sorta indicating the whole controller / bus / interface.

I'll try swapping around the IDE cables - that's not a bad idea. Though my PC has the first slot marked as HD and the latter CD-ROM, it's quite possible it's as you stated - not recommended, yet possible.

I'm leaning towards it being the CPU cache though, since it crashes the most when it's doing a major HD load after a program has already been running. (Indicating a full cache, a cache miss)

Ruled out includes: Memory, BIOS, virus, power, heat

The controller is not harwired for HD in Master position.. the reason for it in that position is that HD's are generally faster than the CD ROM's.... Putting the CD Rom before the HD in the IDE M/S relationship sticks the slower device first.... something technically not recommended due to stability issues related to speed differences in responses from peripheral to controller.

The markings of the controller, in this case, are recommended connections.... not required connections.

A "full" setup looks something llike this normally
-----------IDE 1----------IDE 2
Master---HDD1----------HDD2
Slave----CD(RW) 1-----DVD(RW)
---asssuming that HDD1 is faster than HDD2.

A functional alternative but less complete setup is
-----------IDE 1----------IDE 2
Master---HDD1----------HDD2
Slave----CD(RW) 1/DVD(RW

or
-----------IDE 1----------IDE 2
Master---HDD1----------CD(RW) 1/DVD(RW
Slave----HDD2
-----but this one actually will normally provide fast response for the CD/DVD at teh expense of speed for HDD2

Finally, this setup has never worked for me, but I have heard a very few people get it to work somehow.
-----------IDE 1--------------------IDE 2
Master---CD(RW) 1/DVD(RW----HDD1

Testing:

Swapped IDE cables and positions. Still fails.

Tried turning off my heat sensor utility in the thought that it was faulty and shutting the computer down: Still fails.

And then, I was working in Photoshop, doing erasing, and was crashing often. I pulled up my task manager and lo-and-behold, CPU use spikes out fast. Now I've said that it could be cache, but what if it was heat after all?

I suppose this still makes sense. Since Photoshop isn't exactly doing constant hard drive loads, it leads me away from the IDE as the source of my problems. It could be cache, or perhaps it's something wonky - like the thermostat on the CPU is on one part of the chip, but another part is frying.

So, back to trying to put back in my old CPU. If this works, I may spare my computer from the garbage for another few months. *grins*

I haven't been back for a while, it fell of to like the umpteenth page so I figured it was gone.

Anyway I crash considerably less now. The fans on my computer have a speed switch so I put them on full speed and maybe crash once a night which I can live with. Thank you all for your help.

What kind of fan do you have on your video card?