crashing question

okay, so i am a paying member, but my system keeps crashing. i have read the one fix that states to check your cpu while it crashes, then right click to select affinity.....only i do not get an "affinity" choice, so i cannot from there, select cpu 0 or o1. my system is good enough for the program. i have a 2GB memory, am running windows 200 service pack 4, and my processor is 2.26 GHZ? What else can i try before i have to cancel my membership? what occurs 80% of the time, is i log on, and my avatar appears, but either wont move, or begins moving and will not stop. i cannot teleport out, as no places will appear, then i have to close out, and it tells me the program crashed. when i check my cpu, it says it is using 100% of the cpu for 2nd life alone, no other apps running, and with 2G memory, i should be fine. i really like this program and want to continue. any other tips i have not tried? thanks
corrine decosta

What type of graphics card are you using? and are the drivers up to date? That can be a big factor in the programs performance.

The Technical Issues forum would probably be a better place to post with this question, but there's enough cross-over that you should get some useful answers.

The standard basics for getting up and running:

* Update your graphics drivers

* Defrag your hard drive

* Do a clean install of SL (or at the very least, empty your cache)

* Check your firewall/security settings (Norton, for instance, will cause problems if it's scanning your cache)

* Review your Preferences and select the most conservative settings (they can always be cautiously raised later)

If you can rule out these common causes of problems, then trouble-shooting may become a little more difficult, but don't worry about that until you've run through the checklist.

My graphics card is: NVIDIA GEforce GO 6600, is that good enough? I am not running norton, but I do have Zone ALarm on.

I'm no expert, but I suspect Zone Alarm could be a problem. Because of the high traffic caused by constant texture downloads, SL is sometimes mistaken for an intrusive program.

Or at least that's my vague, muddle understanding of the conflict. Please, someone correct if I've got it wrong.

Let me sum it up this way..... Welcome to SL! If I had to guess I would say about 3% of it MIGHT be your computer and the 97% is ALL SL bugs.

"Truth Hurts"

Corinne - next time you are in SL for long enough to do this, go up to Help and choose "about Second Life" then copy all that information and paste it here. That way we can see specifically what your hardware and software config is.

Dual core won't usually cause you to crash even if you don't set affinity before you go into to SL (I never set it to 1 core anymore - I let it run on 2) so I suspect (with no real information that isn't it.

You don't mention if you're using First Look or the production viewer. My husband used to crash using First Look before he updated his drivers and updated his .net framework.

So anyway, post all that information here - should only take 20 seconds to get in and copy that - and we can help you better from that.

take care,
g

nVidia GO series adapter in her system indicates a mobile machine. I.E. A Laptop. So I would suggest a few things:

1) Try playing this on a desktop machine. Portables and laptops are often a compromise on performance that is sorely needed to run SL.

2) If you are on a wireless link to your home DSL/Cable or "borrowing" from a neighbor - get off of that ASAP. Wire your machine direct to your Ethernet switch or hub and blaze away. No matter how fast you think or the product materials lead you to believe your wireless is, it's not stable enough to run SL properly. I know, I tried with proprietary 125 mb/sec capable radios and the packet loss, halts/stalls/stutters were dismal. Plugging the machine into a wired port took care of that for smooth sailing.

Good luck!

Absolute bull****.

My SL experience improved a hundredfold when I got a new computer. I don't suffer from the constant problems that other people report, even when concurrency is up to 35,000.

I can teleport where I want, walk freely in all but the most crowded sims, and crash infrequently (maybe 2 to 3 times over the course of a weekend and then only when I'm playing with a lot of building textures).

Buying a new computer was the single best move I ever made for enjoying SL.