Application stops responding

I have tried to visit SL many times, and in fact, I have finally been able to get off of Orientation Island. However, due to the application deciding to stop responding after a random period of time (0.5 - 5.0 minutes) it has been a very frustrating journey.

I am running RHEL 4
I am using a ThinkPad T60p (ATI drivers, current and working)
I have 2GB of RAM (2 more arriving today...may help)

Unfortunately, while I may be an expert in Windows, I am not an expert in Linux. I am trying to ween my dependency on Microsoft, but this is one more thing that appears to stand in the way.

Since I have not been able to find a good troubleshooting guide, and I have read most of the posts here, is there anyone that may want to help me with figuring out this issue?

Things that I have tried:
* export LL_GL_BASICEXT=x
* export LL_GL_NOEXT=x
* I do not turn on any streaming audio, nor video
* I do not have anything else running
* I have used both windowed and full screen (no apparent change)

Any thoughts, ideas, or suggestions?

As soon as I was able to leave the Help Island (had to go for an event that I was attending...) SL started performing like I expected it to.

Unfortunately, I cannot test this theory since, as they say, you can never go back...

...now to start turning things back on!