SL's killing my pc, I think.. Please help.

Here's a quick idea of what's going in, in list form:

- Start up computer

- Wait for computer to load

- Try to start up SL

- I see the SL game start up on the task bar, but nothing comes up over my desktop

- The SL logo on the taskbar goes away, and then that's it

- I start up again, and either send a report or don't, either way it does the same thing over and over about 20 times

- Reinstall SL

- Repeat everything after the second step


And now when I try to browse the net, my pages scroll really slow and choppy.. I had this problem yesterday too, but from either all the restarting, reinstalling, or whatever else I did I thought I fixed it..

I'm going to try to restart now, and if SL works I still want to know why it's doing this.. Just because I get it to work for a few hours after I post this doesn't mean it's fixed. I'm pretty sure it isn't my computer, since I have no other problems that are this major. I just started this game and I'm already loving it, it's pretty good (maybe not the best looking or running game out, but great concept either way). I guess I'll list my computer specs just in case this game for some odd reason has a conflict with some of my hardware.

AMD Athlon XP 3200+
ATi X800 Pro 256MB
Your standard everyday one-gig of RAM. I forget the company. PC-3200 though if that helps. And 2x 512 not 1x 1024.

Help!!!

Stevey-

Based on your specs I'm going to suggest one of 2 things is going on:

1. You've got a motherboard with an nVidia nForce motherboard. If this is the case, there's a known conflict between nForce motherboards and ATI cards (not just in SL BTW). The way to resolve this would be to goto www.ati.com and follow their instructions for getting into the BIOS of the card (not the motherboard) and you need to disable the SmartGart function.

2. If it's not an nForce motherboard, you most likely need a BIOS update for your motherboard as many motherboard manufacturers took some shortcuts to support PCI Express cards and then fixed them in later BIOS revisions (Dell Dimension 8400's are one of the most notorious for this. Any BIOS prior to A03 won't work with any card but an ATI x300.)

Colin

This is a shot in the dark, but something kinda similar happened to me. Is your computer's clock set to the right time? I had a crash that reset my clock to the year 1601. Second Life would try to load over and over again but never would get past the crash report thing. I corrected the date and it worked fine after that.

I got the A7N8X-E Deluxe (Nforce 2 I believe, but I get confused sometimes, even though I built the computer ><


I can run F.E.A.R. (Preorder online beta and single player demo), Half Life 2, Half Life 1, Tony Hawks Undergound 2, Doom 1/2/3, Counter Strike: Source, Medal Of Honor: Pacific Assault, Dark Age Of Camelot, Lineage 1/2, Star Wars: Battlefront, Battlefield 1942/2, Dungeon Siege, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, FarCry, and pretty much any other game thrown at me besides Anarchy Online and Second Life. I also have no problems running any types of non-game related software, and all that stuff.

I use Omega Drivers for my card.. I'm not sure about my BIOS, I have no idea how to update it. But I figure since everything else runs fine except SL and Anarchy Online it can't be the bios, as these aren't the two newest games out, or anything like that.

Nope, my computer didn't do a time warp. heh

Thanks for trying though, but sadly that isn't it.. *cries*

I tried the Wiki thing.


Question:
I'd like to completely remove everything Second Life from my computer and reinstall. How do I do that?


Answer:
Follow these steps. If you cannot see the files or folders (especially Application Data), then: go to the Tools menu, choose Options, go to the View tab, and select Show Hidden Files and Folders. Then click OK.

Windows:
1) Open c:\Documents and Settings\(yourusername)\Local Settings and delete the contents of your Temp folder.
2) Open c:\Documents and Settings\(yourusername)\Application Data\Second Life and delete the contents of the Cache folder.
3) Uninstall Second Life using the Add/Remove Programs tool in your Windows Control Panel.
4) Visit http://secondlife.com/download and download and install the latest release.



I did all this, and it still does the same thing. yay.

Reinstalled my graphics drivers, didn't work either. I didn't try uninstalling before reinstalling them though, but I doubt it'll help anyway. I guess I'll try it for fun real quick though, not like I got anything better to do.

Nope.

Shoot, I go for a two+ hour walk, come back and there's still no posts. Can I get some help over here? It's gonna stink when I'm charged ten bucks for no reason.

Well I'm not sure why SL has gone all wonky on you - but if It is related to the pages going all choppy when scrolling, that has to do with outdated graphics drivers. Depending on which card you have, download the newest driver available, and before installing completely uninstall all old drivers on your system. This can be done by Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs> NVIDIA Display Drivers -or- ATI Display Drivers

Installing new drivers should stop the pages from being choppy, and may also help with your other problem.

Hope I can help...

I've got the latest drivers. My pages don't scroll choppy until after I've tried to run SL. I had it running after that two hour walk for a few minutes until I went to bed. Now I'm up this morning and again I can't get the game to work.

I've got the latest drivers.

Stevey, welcome to the land of denial that there is anything inherently wrong with the graphics code in SL. You will continue to get the same responses about updating your bios and your graphics drivers. You may even start to see posts stating perhaps your card is overheating or your memory is faulty, etc. I admit, some of these are good first steps, because sometimes these are factors. However, that will be where it ends. Either you will get lucky and it really will be a driver/bios problem and/or the bug will just get masked, or you will get unlucky and none of these remedies will work. The bad part is that if none work, you will find that there will be minimal, if any, effort to actually track down the source of these problems within the game logic. It is just too easy to lay blame at the feet of motherboard and graphic card manufacturers, claiming it is their code at fault, regardless of how many other graphical based programs you are able to run. Good luck, I hope one of these updates, reinstalls, etc. clears your problem.

You already reinstalled driver for video and still does this to you, it doesn't sound like a video feature at all. It sounds more like the application can't run properly.
Here's a test that might help find the guilty component:
* Run windows.
* Wait until everything is loaded up and you see your full desktop.
* Run SL.
* Wait for it to load or not load, no matter what happens wait a little.
* Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to bring up the task manager.
* Check the process tab, and see if there's a component running or trying to run and is hogging your system resources; that might be the culprit and we can wokr around it to see how to make your SL version work

(on a side note, seems SL and java don't get well, tried running azureus whilerunning SL and it crashed greatly.)

Also you might want to ry running SL but removing non-needed programs (just leave your antivirus running in the background) there's a lot of trash we all don't need running 24/7 on our computers.

I imagine that sometimes they might be correct in denying it.

Heh. Thank you, Sargus, that was by far the most helpful post yet. Seriously.

Xavier, I can't tell if anything is still running after SL doesn't start up, but I'm guessing since it makes my internet pages scroll all choppy-like there has to be something. Nothing under applications though, so maybe there's a process still going.


And I'm not sure what you're trying to get at, Prak, but it sort of seems like you're taking my words and getting them twisted. The pages on the net scroll choppy >after< I try to start up SL. Everything does run fine except for SL and Anarchy Online (I don't even play AO anyway, I just put that out there, that game sucks). So I'm not sure what you mean.

Hey Stevey, thanks for the compliment. I know from a technical standpoint I really didn't add much value, but hopefully from a psychological point of view I helped you see you are not going nuts. *chuckles*



It seems anytime I say anything that hints that Linden Labs isn't doing thier job, by digging deeper into these types of bugs, triggers some sort of defensive response. I suspect they are alternate AVs for the Lindens (just playing with you Prak). *grins* This one was actually rather tame compared to some of the sandblasting I have taken before.

Stevey, the best advice I can give you to get this working is unfortunately much the same as you will hear on here from other threads, which is remove anything that is running that is not critical, esp. anything that is heavily graphical. Strip your system down to the base essential processes. Turn off all video and process performance enhancing features, such as caching, video shadowing, memory shadowing, etc. The tradeoff for performance is often compatibility. Make sure your bios and video drivers are the most recent. A big one with the motherboard is to make sure if you use a separate video card to be sure the video on the motherboard is disabled (usually a bios setting). This could cause all sorts of odd behavior with two video drivers responding to requests. Delete the SL cache file, remove the SL software, and reinstall fresh. Obviously, this is just an attempt to get around whatever the real problem is.

The one suggestion someone else made for checking the processes that are running, not the applications, and sorting them in CPU order is a very good idea. You may find some odd process you didn't even know was running on your machine that is competing with SL for resources. That actually is a very feasible problem, and one that can be easily corrected.

I noticed reading your post that you are/were able to play it at times. Could you provide more details in terms of how stable it was before versus now, and if you maybe made any changes or added any applications around the time that SL started misbehaving?

I have seen a similar problem that you describe, where a process runs in the background, but no window displays. I saw this before with the Internet Explorer Browser. For me, a simple reboot would resolve the problem, but I know that's not working for you. There obviously is some sort of conflict, and with luck, playing around with your configuration will create the right circumstances for the UI to appear. But hey, we all know it's not an SL problem....it obviously is your machine. *tries hard to say that with a straight face*

Try a brick. A brick usually works. It's good for bashing things into working order.

Take a look at this ATI article:



"DEVICE DRIVER is STUCK IN INFINITE LOOP" or VPU Recover errors in Windows XP

This issue affects the following system configurations:

* Windows XP
* Any ATI display card

Based on our experience, the error "The drivers for the display adapter got stuck in an INFINITE LOOP" is a result of a system communication mishap. On some systems, the error "Unable to complete a drawing operation", or an ATI VPU recover error may also occur.

This error does not occur on all system configurations.

This issue can occur using any motherboard or graphics chipset along with the Windows XP Operating system. It appears that in most cases this problem is due to a BIOS setting, specifically options affecting the way the RAM, CPU and graphics card communicate with XP and DirectX. Improper timing settings can result in system lock ups or random system reboots.

This issue also affects different makes and models of video cards from various manufacturers.

In attempt to gather more information on why this error occurs, ATI developed a component to catch when the INFINITE LOOP occurs. This component is called VPU Recover. If the display driver detects that the graphics processor has hung, VPU Recover will attempt to reset the graphics processor, eliminating the need for a system reboot.

VPU errors can occur mostly while using 3D applications and games. This error has also been known to occur in 2D applications as well.

This error message may occur in the virtual video adapter driver that is used by Symantec PCAnywhere. If PCAnywhere is installed on a computer where this error message occurs, visit the Symantec Web site to determine if there are any available fixes for your version of PCAnywhere.

At the present time ATI is still gathering information on the Infinite Loop condition.

The following suggestions may help to correct this issue:

1. Verify that the system has updated software
2. Adjust basic settings within the system BIOS
3. Adjust advanced settings with the system BIOS
4. Test with different hardware configurations

1. Verifying that the system has updated software

a) Update the display drivers.
Ensure that you have installed the latest ATI CATALYST software for your ATI product. Drivers for your video card can be found on the ATI website.

b) Ensure that all three DirectX Features are enabled.
Run the available tests to ensure that each of the three components pass.

c) Update your motherboard chipset driver software.
Updating your AGP chipset drivers can add stability to the PC and may help to prevent the Infinite Loop error from occurring.

d) Use the ATI SMARTGART utility to adjust AGP Reads/Writes.
In newer revisions of the Catalyst Drivers, a feature called SMARTGART was introduced. With the latest ATI CATALYST software installed, you can use the ATI SMARTGART settings to adjust the Fast Writes and AGP BUS speed.

Select the "Start" menu -> click on "RUN" -> type "SMARTGART" -> click OK.

Ensure that both the AGP Read and Write settings are On. If these are set to OFF, then enable them and restart Windows as prompted. As a test you should try disabling the AGP Write setting. NOTE- AGP Writes may not be enabled on all chipsets.

e) Update the motherboard BIOS. Any updates can be found on the motherboard manufacturer's website.

f) Make sure you have an adequate power supply.


2. Basic BIOS options.

NOTE: These options may vary depending on the type/version of your system. You may or may not have all these options present.

* Video BIOS Shadow - DISABLED
* Init Primary Display - AGP (Toggle this setting if your video card is PCI)
* AGP MASTER 1W/S READ/WRITE - ENABLED/DISABLED (Toggle this option)
* AGP Aperture size - 128 MB
* AGP Driving Control - AUTO
* Disable AGP 8x/4x mode in the BIOS.
* Disable AGP Fast Writes in the BIOS.
* AGP Driving Control - AUTO
* AGP Performance Control - ENABLED/DISABLED (Toggle this option)
* Assign IRQ for VGA - ENABLED
* System Bios Cacheable - DISABLED
* Video BIOS Cacheable - DISABLED
* VIDEO RAM Cacheable - DISABLED
* Read Around Write - ENABLED/DISABLED (toggle this setting)
* PnP OS installed - YES


3. BIOS Settings for ADVANCED USERS:

NOTE: These options may vary depending on the type/version of your system. You may or may not have all these options.

* Load optimized defaults in your BIOS
* Set your memory settings to default values (I.e.. DRAM Timing = SPD)
* Lower the memory frequency to 133/166mhz (effectively DDR266/333mhz)
* If available increase AGP Voltage to 1.6 - 1.8 in the BIOS
* SDRAM Cycle length - 2.5
* Bank Interleave - ENABLE/DISABLE (toggle this setting - It will only make a difference if you have more than one memory module.)
* DRAM Burst length - 4


4. Recommended Hardware changes:

* Test system with a single memory module if multiples are being used
* Test with different memory modules.
* Test with a different Power supply
* Disable/Remove ALL non-essential hardware i.e. sound card, network card, additional HDD etc.
* Test the video card in a different PC

Additional Information on the Infinite Loop:

Staying Out Of The Loop - http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=64

Microsoft Knowledge Base - http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q293078

Well Sargus, it seems I have to do a little routine every day I turn my pc on in order to play SL..

1. Turn on computer
2. Uninstall SL
3. Restart computer
4. Reinstall SL
5. Plot my burning of the Lind--- nothing here nothing here, just four steps o.o

Like I've said, my computer doesn't have any other problems. If someone brings up Anarchy Online again I will personally find you and slap you, because that game's crap anyway, and I don't even play it anymore to even bother to see if it works or not.


Mix, I used a baseball bat on my old computer a few years ago.


Nice site Jillian.


And finally, Kath (if no ones posted since I've been writing this), it's not VPU recover. My graphics card isn't crashing.

Stop trying to say it's my computer, because the only way it could be my computer is if SL conflicts with >working hardware/software<. There's nothing wrong with my computer that would make SL not work, but let everything else work almost perfect. By the way, almost perfect means games run smooth in medium-high settings, and all non-gaming programs work fine.


By the way, I have MSN, AIM, Xfire, firewall, anti virus, and two IExplorer windows open.
CPU Usage 5%
650MB of RAM left

So does this game need more than 95% of my processor and/or over 650MB to run? I always have those programs open up there (minus the IE's, which aren't open when I run SL either), and I still have no problems with that long list of games I listed in the first post.


Again, my graphics drivers are up to date.

My BIOS is probably a bit out of date, but I'm willing to bet about a billion dollars (shake shake) that isn't it. Why would a BIOS not run SL when it can run F.E.A.R.?

My account's probably going to be banned soon anyway, apparently these people thought I was trying to cause trouble and got really pissy. On top of that I thought I dropped some boxes on my friend's land just playing around, and it turned out to be someone else's land and they reported me without letting me explain I didn't know it wasn't my friend's land. I now know how to tell who's land it is though, so yay for that. If I don't get banned though, and I get this damned game working (well, I do have that daily routine, but that's annoying), I plan on making some stuff for the game. Maybe I'll code my own bootup for it. >

Stevey's Working Bootup, $L100!


One last thing.. I saw a mini game in SL where there's a laptop and you have to try to boot it up without getting the Blue Screen O' Death (or BSOD for you, whatever you are). How about a game where you try to start up SL without it crashing as soon as you click the icon? Say if the game crashes, the mini game gives you a certain amount of time to uninstall the game, restart, then reinstall the game. >.>

I'm only upset because I love this game.
I'm not very upset though, it really isn't a big deal to me, it's more of a I can't stand when computers mess up vibe going on here. I'm going to go to college and hopefully getting a gaming company together, and hopefully by then computers will work a bit better. I know it can't just be SL if it works for almost everyone else, but the thing is my computer really doesn't have any problems with any other programs. It's so weird. I cry now . Ok done crying, this post is too damn long. I guess I'll just do my little routine for now, and hope the next version of SL works better with my computer.

I'd also like to add that the boxes I made had physics, and I guess by physics that means fall through the floor.. Can that be fixed? This way if I do drop something in the wrong spot, I don't have to pan my camera for ten minutes to find the object because it's on the ground (on the ground as in under the player made flooring, which is a bit higher than the actual land, know what I mean?). I know physics in an MMO can be very demanding, but still, it falls through the floor dude. :/

Don't be surprised when it comes to the BIOS Stevey. For many weeks, I was playing SL and getting sudden reboots, lockups and all. I go alright, I know the cure for this. First thing I did, was start looking up all my hardware vendors and performing updates up the wazoo. Once that was done, I thought everything was ok, but when I got back I was still recieving sudden reboots, lockups and the like so I decided to try something I never have, I went and updated my BIOS. I learned that I was using version 1.30 when there was 2.00 out. Anyway, once I flashed the BIOS, I started playing SL again to see if my problems were resolved, and thus far, it seems almost like magic that they were. I can play for more than ten minutes before a sudden reboot or a blatant lockup - as a matter of fact I haven't experienced either one SINCE I updated the BIOS.

Motherboard: MSI KT6V MS-7021
Memory: 512 MB
Processor: 2.17 GHz AMD Athlon XP 2700+ Processor
Hard Drive: 40 GB Maxtor HD
Video: ATI Radeon 9600SE

Not to say that this WILL cure you but from my own experience I learned that it sure as hell cured me and I had a similar idea as you when it came to BIOS. I said the exact same thing - sooo my BIOs is a tad outdated - so what but heh I sure learned differently...

Don't rely on the age of a program to judge whether it should or should not run better or worse (or is a more complex or system intensive program) than a "newer" program. Every program utilizes system resources a bit differently than another. The last thing you want to do is to quit trying the suggestions from the other users here...like the bios update. I had a similar experience with Neverwinter Nights, where I went 'round and 'round with Bioware, inquired hourly on the forums...but still kept the mindset that "it can't be my system, because I run x-program or y-program and have never had any issue". It turns out that it was my bios (I was having a graphic lock up problem after about 10 minutes in-game), and I was told this repeatedly on the forums. Best part about it is that once I did update my bios, my other programs started to run even better. As for updating a bios, check with your board manufacturer for updates and instructions. Bios updates can ruin a system if done wrong, but it is not a hard process at all to do at all...just print the instructions and follow them to the letter.

I do have to agree that updating your bios is a wise thing to do. The problem is that all these various pieces of software interact in ways that cannot always be predicted. Even if a bios or driver update doesn't really fix the problem, there are times where it may mask it either longer or permanently. It's much like taking cold medicine when you feel sick. It doesn't make you get well any faster, but it allows you to function a little better.

The one thing I would mention though regarding the idea that it may not be SL since it works for almost everyone else, is that I think almost all of us experience problems with this game to a greater or lesser extent. We hear from the people who are affected the most with crashes and lockups, but for example, last night the software crashed on my one machine while it ran fine on the other. Both AVs were in the same sim, so it wasn't the sim crashing. Other times they will both crash or my favorite is when SL powers off both computers. And, yes, it IS SL doing that. It's not a heating, driver, voltage, bios, or any other problem when both machines are in different parts of the house, on UPS devices, and aren't even the same processor or generation of CPU. So, I know for an absolute fact SL is doing this. And anyone who thinks SL is without bugs is completely mistaken. There is very very VERY little software out there without bugs.

Actually I will stop telling you a damned thing and you can go sit on a rusty spike and spin. I know for a fact there is something wrong with your computer, I'll bet a billion dollars on it because, Mr. computer genius, SecondLife runs flawlessly on my four computers and they range from an ATI powered laptop to a monster duel core Athlon and 6800 Ultra and I have helped a lot of people in the past with problems similar to yours. SecondLife works completely different than any other game ever made so saying other games work fine so SL should too is not true. Good luck and have a nice life.

I had a friend swearing it wasn't their pc...it was all SL's fault...they found out it WAS their computer...you will too Stevey.

I play this game on two of the oldest computers known to man...and it runs flawlessly on both...although challenged...and updates haven't hurt either one at all.

Good luck, stop blaming LL and all the folks who are trying to help you.

Yes SL has bugs...but throwing a tantrum doesn't fix anything.

my .02

My PC's suck, and I can play.