New (used) computer and NVIDIA problems/crash

[Seicher Rae]

Just a few days ago I got a slightly-used Alienware laptop as a gift — so I'm not real fluent with it yet. It is a vast improvement over my old computer. It has: 

Intel HD Graphics
NVIDIA GeForce GT 335M

Every time I try to boost the graphics past medium, to use shadows, etc. SL crashes, with this message:

The NVIDIA OpenGL driver lost connection with the display driver due to exceeding the Windows Time-Out limit and is unable to continue. The application must close. Error code: 7

I've tried both the official viewer and Firestorm's latest. Same thing happens on both. Other graphic-intensive programs are fine (like Minecraft on full).

Help?

[Seicher Rae]

PS, as far as I know I've got the most recent drivers. Firestorm required me to update one of them (can't recall which).

[Marigold Devin]

Oh blimey, Seicher, you would think Alienware anything would be able to run Second Life, but alas, I think that particular graphics spec struggles. I'd say have a bash with Singularity third party viewer, which general consensus of opinion is that it doesn't put quite so much strain onto a system.

And, of course, other offers of advice should be forthcoming after mine, so keep an eye on your thread.

 

[Orca Flotta]

as far as I know I've got the most recent drivers.

Huh? Do you or don't you? That's kinda important to now when we talk about graphics. And it's no rocket science to keep up to date. Just visit Nvidia's website and look for your specific GPU, then download and install the driver. And while you're there let them add you to their mailing list. That way you always get an email once a new driver is out.

So you got a kinda expensive Alienware lappy as a gift? Even without knowing what kinda gpu you got, common knowledge should've told you that brick must be quite old. And it actually is! Series 3 laptop gpu, and a 35 model is rather low in the Nvidia line up anyway. Please copypaste your system specs into this thread, so we can maybe come up with some helpful hints.

Here's what the experts at notebookcheck have to say:

 

NVIDIA GeForce GT 335M

The Nvidia GeForce GT 335M (sometimes also called GeForce G335M) is a laptop graphics card for middle class gaming notebooks. It is based on the GT215 core (as the GTS 350M for example) but features only 72 shader cores and 24 Texture Mapping Units. Therefore, the GT 335M offers significantly more shaders than the GT 330M, but due to the low clock speed, the performance is not that much better. Compared to the GTS models, the GT 335M does not support GDDR5.

The 3D performance of the GT335M is on a level with the Mobility Radeon HD 5650 in the middle class. Therefore, the GPU is fast enough for all games in 2010. Demanding games like Metro 2033, Battlefield BC2 or Crysis run only in low-medium details fluently. Less demanding games like Call of Duty MW2 or Sims 3 can be played in high detail settings (see Benchmarks below).

As the other GeForce 300M cards, the GT335M offers Purevideo HD (VP4) to accelerate the decoding of HD videos. This means that the GPU offers the complete decoding of MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 ASP, VC-1/WMV9 and H.264 videos.

Furthermore, CUDA, OpenCL, and DirectX Compute allow the usage of the cores for general computing (e.g., encoding of videos).

[Seicher Rae]

Thanks for the quick comments, both with and without the sarcasm added.

I have just started checking into this problem. The computer is quite new to me, as is this problem. I spent the better part of a day uploading drivers the day I got it.  It was an amazing gift and as I stated earlier, a vast improvement over what I had.

I will continue to explore the issue and appreciate the comments pointing in more specific directions.

 

[Teagan Tobias]

You could try going back some with the driver. When I loaded 320.18 I started having problems like your are reporting. I went back to 306.97 and it worked fine. When 320.49 came out I installed but still had problems. I was having problems with my fans racing and not turning off after I shut my system down. I think I am using 310.90 now, I just downloaded 332.21 but am a bit shy about installing. Some updates are more for support for new cards rather than something new and great for my card so I will stay where I am until a couple more updates come out, or I have some other problems. I have GTX 550 Ti made by Asus on an Asus mother board.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

This might help (from the NVidia customer help):

 

OpenGL message “lost connection”

Answer ID 3007   |    Published 07/14/2011 08:14 AM   |    Updated 02/06/2012 11:37 AM

OpenGL message "lost connection"

I have seen this Event Log Message:

The NVIDIA OpenGL driver lost connection with the display driver due to exceeding the Windows Time-Out limit and is unable to continue.

The application must close.

What does it mean?

If you received this message from an application (on a pop up message or in the Event Log), the application was unable to continue rendering because the Microsoft Windows imposed time limit (TDR) was exceeded. This is normally the case when the workload sent to the Graphics Card is greater than what the graphics card can process in the normal timeout of two seconds.

You can find more information in this page:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/gg487368.aspx

How can this be fixed?

Two possible solutions to try would be:

1. Reduce the graphics workload if possible, such as rendering to a lower resolution or with less detail.
2. Increase the timeout to allow more time to complete the really tough rendering parts. Microsoft provides the information on how to modify the Windows Registry to achieve this.

 

Also keep an eye on your temperatures, the message means your card is pushed to (or even over) its limits. That can be a problem, especially when using a laptop.

Btw, you say other graphic intensive programs run fine. Don't forget that SL is pretty much in a class of its own, slowing high end gaming computers down to below 30 fps in certain sims while they can handle the latest games at let's say 80 fps.

[Ron Khondji]

I had the same problem with my old alienware laptop with a gtx280m card.
It ran quite stable with an old nvidia driver, 260.something I believe. Anything newer and Second Life kept crashing.

So I suggest you get the latest official driver for your card from Dell instead of the latest nvidia drivers.
Maybe it'll help.

[Orca Flotta]

Ok, I'll try to be less sarcastic. I don't even know how to define it exactly other than ppl in some countries don't like it for it's too witty or something.:matte-motes-nerdy: Anyhoo, on with your lappy and your problem:

- Have you ever considered running Linux? It should make your machine considerably more snappy, secure and save. Also most (Debian-based) distros have slightly older Nvidia drivers in their repositories, which could be a good thing. And you'll hopefully won't receive timed-out messages anymore. And no, that wasn't meant to be funny/sarcastic but I'm 100% serious here. Linux Mint, Ubuntu, O4OS or similar distros are very beginner friendly and as an old Win/Apple user you should feel at home quite soon. In the begining just run it in dual boot, so you can always log in with your Windoze and check Linux forums if you have problems and trouble. I did it myself for half a year until I noticed I hardly used Win anymore. So I kicked it off my system and never looked back.

- Considering SL's high demands on your system, do yourself a favour and get a cooling stand. One with fans! Even if you don't have the money to buy one now (c'mon it's only 20 $ or so), please place Alien on a cool surface: put it on a leftover kitchen/bathroom tile. Make sure you have ample air draft around the exhaust holes and never use it directly on wooden surfaces, duvets, blankets, cuddle pillows or your lap. NEVER! I never cared about this and now my good Asus lappy is a brick.:smileyembarrassed: The repair lady just needed a brief peek inside, shook her head and looked at me in disbelief: "Geez, girl, this is a laptop, not a fish. It's not supposed to be smoked." 1100 € down the drain.:smileysad:

- Considering the age of your Alien I guess it's quite dusty by now, so take off the lower cover and give it a good cleaning. Compressed air works wonders, although I prefer a vacuum. Pros and cons for each practice, just make sure to not spin the fans too fast. Do that every 6 months (3 if you're a smoker!).

- And of course the usual stuff: check internet connection, always plug into the router, never use wifi, upgrade your RAM to 8MB, check your driver settings and graphics settings in SL. Max DD 128 (64 when shopping or clubbing), medium/high, no shadows or advanced lighting models.

With the right settings and a bit of TLC your Alien should be good for years of pleasure.

[Nalates Urriah]

The error you are seeing is an nVidia driver problem. It is specific to the driver, not SL. Other games ran into the same problem. I for get which verzion of driver had the problem resolved.

The current version is 332.21 2014/1/7. Or 9.18.13.3221, depending on where you look vor the verion number.

 

[Seicher Rae]

Wow, even more great replies! Thanks. So far what I've done, based on the suggestions here:

* Rolled back the NVIDIA driver to 314.

* I disabled Windows Aero (which was set by default and I totally forgot how much of a resource hog it is).

* Increased the Windows timeout limit settings for the graphics card.

(Thanks to my partner H for helping with some of this.)

The results: When boosting the graphics to enable shadows in SL I originally got the crash message near instantly. I can now walk around with shadows (sun/moon and projector) and almost everything in water reflection. Of course the fps goes way down. Eventually I still got the crash message.

I don't need to walk around in ultra graphics all the time. I do like to take photos and really wanted to have the option of shadows. I think using the "tricks" I had to use when my ancient laptop still barely functioned in SL will help greatly when taking photos with this computer. It is only 3 years old, far from a brick, a huge improvement over what I had, and is an amazingly generous gift to receive! It isn't an uber gaming desktop but wow, what a difference it has made, not just in Second Life.

Again, thanks for all the great tips here! They are very much appreciated.