I hope someone out there can help

My problem is this: I recently purchased a new gaming computer with an ATI Radeon HD 2900XT (Synch Master) graphics card installed. Now, I am somewhat computer literate, but not too sure of the workings going on inside...LOL. Whenever I play SL (since getting the new pc up and running), it crashes. Sometimes it is just the game itself that crashes, at other times (which is what mostly happens), my entire computer freezes and I have to restart the ENTIRE computer over again. According to their minimum requirements page, this graphics card SHOULD work (at least to my understanding of it). One thing I did notice while trying to diagnose the problem was the the number related to the Open GL are completely different in game than what's actually on my card. I am completely clueless as to what "Open GL" is, but I'm thinking that the difference in numbers, isn't a good thing? I'm hoping that someone out there can help me figure this out. I would like to play without having to completely restart my computer every 5 minutes (if I'm lucky to last that long...LOL)

Vista?

No...I have XP

From my understanding, Radeon cards are not supported by SL.. Although I run one on my laptop, and aside from the lag being incredibly annoying, it never crashes.. You might want to check for new drivers for the card, and see if that helps. Sounds like a conflict is causing it to crash... Pin pointing that conflict is gonna be the fun part.. If you haven't already, try clearing cache, thats the old standby answer lol.. but it couldn't hurt if you haven't done it in a long time...

PC Minimum System Requirements:
# Video/Graphics Card**:

* nVidia GeForce 2, GeForce 4mx, or better
* OR ATI Radeon 8500, 9250, or better
**
Second Life may not run on graphics/video cards other than the ones listed above. Unfortunately, if your graphics card includes any of the following words, it's NOT compatible with Second Life:

* nVidia cards that report as a RIVA TNT or TNT2
* ATI cards that report as RAGE or RAGE PRO
* ATI cards that report as RADEON 320M, 340M, 345M, or similar model numbers
* Intel
* Intel Extreme
* 3DFX
* RIVA
* TNT
* SiS
* S3
* S3TC
* Savage
* Twister
* Rage
* Kyro
* MILENNIA
* most cards by MATROX

The following cards have not been tested with Second Life, and compatibility is not certain:

* nVidia cards that report as Quadro
* ATI cards that report as RADEON IGP or RADEON XPRESS
* ATI cards that report as FireGL
* ATI cards that report as FireMV

To me it looks as if only certain types of ATI Radeon cards aren't supported. Being as mine is newer than most of these, I would think that it would work. At least that is how I read it. Thank you for your input tho. I have cleared cache and uninstalled and reinstalled SL a couple of times already and it still isn't working. I appreciate any other suggestions, tho. I truely appreciate the input.

/me knows nothing about ATI except that their OpenGL implementation problems on Vista kinda needs work.

I'd go to the ATI website and make sure you've got the latest drivers - Windows Update won't give you anything even closer to the latest one. To crash the whole PC, it usually takes a driver. That or some kind of hardware problem.

I run SL on an ATI X850 with no problems whatsoever (well except for the usual BS). Just because your computer is new, don't assume all the drivers are the latest. Manufacturers often use disk images to install the operating system, and they may not always keep them up to date. So check *all* of your drivers, and make sure you have the latest.