SL Constantly Crashing...

My PC exceeds the recommended system requirements for SL, yet SL continuously crashes on me. Its very random and annoying. Has anyone experienced this or can recommend some options to try? Any info would be helpful.

Thanks, Rebecca

The most common reason for crashing in SL when other programs work fine is outdated grahics drivers. Go to the manufacturers website and look for the latest drivers and download them. Uninstall your current driver (your computer will work but the picture will be low grade) install the new drivers then restart your computer. If the problem was due to an outdated graphics driver that should fix it. There are a number of other things that could cause you to crash too.

List your specs for your computer, including the installed RAM........that will help some the real geeks that hang out here pin point other potential areas for attention.

My PC specs:

OS: Windows XP Professional SP2
CPU: 2.8GHz Pentium IV
RAM: 1GB
Video Card: nVidia GeForce FX 5600XT, 256 MB DDR AGP

Thanks for the tip on downloading the lastest driver for the video card. I will give that a whirl and see how it goes. In the mean time, if there is any more info that anyone has, that would be great!

Rebecca

There must be something wrong, because I been crashing alot tonight too, and one of my alt's is stuck at my house, can't get out or Teleport anywhere, which causes the other alt's to crash too.

Also I have 3 computers and each one has crashed tonight.

See http://nicholaz-beresford.blogspot.com/

I am always crashing too - it was fine before the last patch but it's extremely frustrating.

Processor: amd 64 FX-62 Dual Core Processor 2.81 GHz
Memory: 2046
Vista 32 bit

Longest I can stay on is 5 minutes - very frustrating. My drivers are completely up to date.

Its not your computers. I just bought a brand new computer and it is fully equiped to handle SL and lots of other programs and I still crash. I can be standing still and not moving and I still crash and I am past annoyed with the problems with this game!

I'm not sure if any of what I have to say will help.......but here goes, anway.

Everyone knows Windows is a memory hog.......all versions. My understanding is that Visa is a real monster for memory (no first hand knowledge...........just what I've read here and other places). But a long time ago simi geek told me how to help Windows along a little and I've followed his advice since........my Windows experience has improved dramatically too.

I run SL relatively trouble free (well, times when server issues are not the cause of problems anyway). My system is fairly powerful for a year and a half old (it's custom built).
Intel P4 Dual Core 3 gig CPU
1 gig of DDR2 RAM
nVidia 7200LE CPU with 256 DDR onboard RAM
160 gig Western Digital SATA HD at 7200 rpm
Sound Blaster 5.1 Live audio (nothing special since its the same card I've had in three previous computers)

The computer meets and exceeds SL's minimum requirements though from what I've heard I should be having more problems than I do. So now, to what I have done to maybe make a difference over someone with identical specs who does have problems is that I have set my paging file (system virtual memory) pretty high........way over what Windows sets it as default. I'll tell you how to get to where you can adjust (or just check if you want) your settings......this is for Windows XP sp2 with all updates downloaded and installed.

Go to "Control Panel"
click the "System" icon
then click the "Advanced" tab and on the "Performance" section
click the "Setting" button then
click the "Advanced" tab (another advanced tab)
you will three sections:
Processor scheduling.....check "programs"
Memory usage.......check "programs"
Virtual memory........click the "change" button (to either change or see the setttings)
I have my virtual memory set at 1536 MB minimum and
3072 maximum.

Most Windows machines are something like 500 MB with 1500 MB max........setting the file bigger will help with memory intensive applications..........and SL is memory intensive.

Hope I've helped someone anyway.

I checked mine and it is set at 1536 MB minimum and 3072 Maximum

As a test (and if you don't already run full-screen), try running full-screen and don't switch away from SL to any other application.

The only times (although 1.16 did have some random crashing for me) SL starts crashing on me is when I switch back and forth between other proggies (doesn't necessarily coincide with the switching). If I use SL and only SL and don't switch away, it's all good.

(If you could describe the crash that might help too . SL could just *poof* all of a sudden, it can crash with the crash logger kicking in, puter can just plain hang, or spontaneously reboot, etc)

Blue screen of death (BSOD) crashes or rebooting crashes are due mainly to a programme in memory not giving up allocated system memory when the OS needs it back, or the fact it overwrites OS in use memory.. either way it is very bad programming. XP was supposed to have protected memory blocks, whereby programmes should not be able to over write or intrude into, however, is can still be forced as the registers cannot be locked by hardware and rely on the OS software to 'memory manage' the situation.

Programme crashing, can be caused by memory leaks and or the OS grabbing back the allocated memory to carryout its functions when API calls are made.

If you apply Windows OS setting to performance rather than programmes, and use 3rd party tools like xptune to set the OS to always keep the kernel in memory, then BCOD or rebooting crashes should be a thing of the past. Programme crashes like SL client are LL bad programming. Setting a huge OS cache doesn't effect how SL operates as it uses its own cache, all you are doing effectively is giving more room to the OS to offload more core programmes. Once the memory leaks take hold, it drains the system of available memory and leaves even less for the OS to grab back when required. Having more system Ram slows this process down, but can only buy you time.