Gone from unable to log in to black screen and crashes

Ok I can log in, but when Iget into Second Life my screen goes black and then reboots. Seems Iam having crashes.

Well I updated Direct X 9.0C and my drivers as well as my AGP drivers for my motherboard as was suggested by the viewer. I'm combin to the bad conclusion my card might be bad.

Or your power supply is bad or underpowered.

Well I guess replacing my power supply couldn't hurt. Its also cheaper then getting a new video card. Thanks for the suggestions I'll have a look at my PS and see what its rated at.

But it very possibly could be the video card, just trying to present all possabilities.

At what part of the startup of SL does your computer reboot? Does your computer alway reboot at the same point? Does it happen soon and soon after each reboot (until you let the computer sit and cool down)?

Well I barely get into Second life and Ican see the enviroment then I lose the signal. I updated Direct X 9 and reinstalled my video drivers. So now instead of a reboot I just lose video.

here are my system specs:

AMD Athlon XP 2400+
Asus A7S333 motherboard
Chaintech Geforce FX5900 XT
512MB of memory (2 256mb sticks)
DVD-RW Drive
DVD Drive
60gb Hard drive
Sound Blaster Live 5.1 sound card
350 watt power supply

Before thinking your hardware is bad, do you have any other DirectX or OpenGL games you can try?

If so, boot 'em up and try to play continuously for at least 10 minutes. If you don't have any problems, I would rule out Video Card failure - at least for the time being.

Does NOT sound like a fun experience, you have my sympathies!

Take care,

--Noel "HB" Wade
(Tread Whiplash)

Well I do play World of Warcraft also and I have been getting these same problems. Though I can actually play the game for hours and I think its resolved itself i could be wrong.

I guess Icould load up WoW and just go afk for awhile see what happens.

I would try that... This may be a situation where the Video Card needs to be "heat soaked" (i.e. work for a little while) before the problem becomes evident. If you see screen-blanking and/or rebooting while on WoW, then you could probably assume the vid-card is going bad.

Oh - make sure you DISABLE any screen-savers, peer-2-peer networking apps, or "grid computing" apps (like SETI@Home). They might be coming on and interfering with things... Just a thought.

Take care,

--Noel "HB" Wade
(Tread Whiplash)

Spoke too soon, I can play for 15 minutes then I lose video and have to reboot. (

I'm glad you were able to figure out a (temporary) solution. It might not be useful to you, but on the subject of power:

When looking at a PSU, saying "oh, it's a 350W" is unfortunately not good enough anymore. The vast range of build qualities and proprietary ratings schemes is such that a given PSU might be considered 250W according to one manufacturer, and 500W by another.

What you really want to do is look at the ouput table: (see here for an example)

When selecting a power supply, the most important number is the +12V rail. You want this to be as high as possible when using a high-wattage video card. 15 amps really should be considered the minimum rating when dealing with a desktop box that has a GeForce FX5800 or higher video card. A higher-quality PSU like an Antec or Enermax model will deliver what you need at almost any model. In fact, most Enermax PSUs actually have two seperate 12V rails.

So your saying I might need a new PSU? I guess I can go shopping for one this weekend. Though I don't remember having these problems with this card before World of Warcraft or in Second Life

No, I'm just saying.

If it worked without problems before, and your hardware hasn't changed, figure out what software has.

This is a new install of Windows Xp. As far as World of Warcraft the black screen is pretty wide spread. I'm guessing its Blizzard that mucked something up.

Here though I can't say the same thing though.

I think we're talking about things too much in terms of specific apps. The key to trouble-shooting this, is to define the category and scope of the problem. THEN you can work to fix it.

Some things to ask yourself (and test):

1) Does only SL crash the computer?

2) Do other applications cause the same or similar kind of crashing? If so, do they have anything in common (i.e. they're all 3D games - or they all use OpenGL - or they're all spreadsheet programs... any commonalities at all)?

3) Have you made any software or hardware modifications to your system recently?

Figuring out any "common threads" in your problem will often point the way to the problem; and thus to the solution.

Good luck!

Take care,

--Noel "HB" Wade
(Tread Whiplash)

Alexis, what's your video card? I got a new G-Force 5700 LE for Christmas and I started having similar problems with Second Life and Anarchy Online (but less frequently than you are.) My screen goes black, any sound cuts out, and for all intents and purposes it's crashed, but the computer doesn't reboot itself like it does for most crashes I've encountered.

I am running a GeForce 5900 XT.

As far as commonality it seems to be my 3D programs so far. Hardware changes I have not done in quiet a few months and that was when I installed my GeForce FX 5900 XT card. Only recently have I been encountering these kinds of video loss/freezes.

I'm wondering if there is possiblity nVIDIA has a bug in their driver software. I really do not want to go out and buy a new card but I have a spare Geforce 3 TI200 that I can test with.

I'm really hoping its not my video card

Well I finally got so fed up I took my old GeForce 3 Ti 200 and put it in my computer. Wouldn't you know the darn thing is working fine now!

GRRR I don't know why my 5900XT is having such problems. I hate to deem it a bad card since it was so darn expensive.

Just downloaded SL onto my brand new eMachine...I got into the site, was there about 10 minutes and then crashed. It told me something about a Driver. I am so computer illiterate that I have no clue what to do. I really don't want to mess around too much with the inner parts of the computer since it's brand new. Can anyone tell me how to find the information on what video card I have installed and to figure out how to get me into SL quickly? ~innocent smile~ thank you

I think also it was your power supply .. I ended up buying an antec 400 watt power supply when upgrading to my amd xp 2100 system I have now. The 300 watt power supply I had would produce these same problems when I upgraded my system. Maybe that more expensive video card was pushing it just over the edge. When you pushed the video card it would probably have required a bit more power than your system could give and reboot.

You could have tested the power supply theory by unplugging your other cards if you had any (such as a soundcard) and maybe your cd/dvd roms. Turned off any type of case fan while running the case open for a bit. See if that fixed your problem with reboots by cutting down the power your system needs by as much as possible.\

If you are running now though that is all that matters Happy to see you able to get on