Constant crashing?

[Lana Dasmijn]

Sorry if this has been discussed before.  Following are my partner's general specs on his very brand new computer:

Intel Core i7-3930K (Six Core, 12MB Cache) Overclocked up to 4.1Ghz
16GB Quad Channel DDR3 at 1600MHz
Dual 2GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon HD 7870
2TB RAID 0 (2x 1TB SATA 6Gb/s) 7,200RPM
Windows 7

 

He's tried the SL viewer, Phoenix, and Firestorm.  With shadows enabled and without.  No matter what he does, he's been crashing every 10-15 minutes.  Any idea what might be the cause or what he can do to fix this?  Thanks for any help and/or suggestions!

[Peggy Paperdoll]

Crashing or disconnected from the servers?  On the surface there's no reason for the computer to crash the viewer or the operatiing system.  There's a difference (a huge one) between a crash and a loss of connection to the servers though both serve the same purpose (SL is unusable and has to be shut down).  A typical symptom of a disconnect is everything in SL becomes almost unresponsive with only the ability to spin your avatar around.....no walking, flying or running, chat stops, sometimes voice and media keep running (they are delivered from sources outside the LL servers).  You evenually get a message that you've been disconnected from the servers (though that sometimes doesn't happen).  A viewer crash usually just shuts down the viewer and you wind up at your desktop unexpectedly........but sometimes things just freeze and you have to force the viewer to shut down.  And another (much more serious) crash is when your operating system shuts down unexpectedly.  People often lump all three issues into a single term "crash".........and the fix is different for each.

 

[Lana Dasmijn]

Thanks for the clarification, that makes sense.  He says it's that the viewer is crashing, and that the viewer (all three) shuts down and he's back at his desk top.  Sometimes it freezes up, but eventually closes itself.  He's never gotten a disconnected from server notice.

[Peggy Paperdoll]

Well that presents a potential big problem (even if the computer is very new).  A time delay such as 5 or 10 minutes before a crash often means a heating issue.  Heating issues are computer killers (I mean that literally too).  Have your friend get some hardware monitoring software to keep tabs on the temperatures of the hardware devices in the computer (specifically the CPU and GPU).  The common upper temperature threshold for CPU's and GPU's is 105 C (that may vary but that's pretty common).  When those temps are reached there is a very real danger of damage to the hardware (by that I mean destruction of the device).  The threshold will shut down the device before it damages itself (in theory) which will crash the program that is using the device.  I, personally, have destroyed a GPU by letting it get too hot (and it never reached the threshold.....ever).  I would say if the temp reaches 90 C it's time to shut down the program that is causing the heating (SL will do that) and investigate to find out why.  On a new computer it's not likely to have enough dust build up to cause the problem but it is possible that one or more of the case fans (and even the GPU fan) are not working.  It's also possible to have the cabling and/or hardware devices blocking proper airflow through the case.

You can Google for free hardware monitoring software or go to Download.com for some free ones........many are very good.  The programs are lightwieght and don't use much of the system's resources (though with 16 GB of RAM that's not going to be a problem anyway).

[Linda Brynner]

I can second that Peggy. Heat can cause big problems, crashing the viewer and even the computer.

SpeedFan is free, light and easy to use. Temps are shown in the Windows taskbar.

http://download.cnet.com/SpeedFan/3000-2094_4-10067444.html

I try to stay below 92 C.

The following things are of major influence regarding heat:

Dusty fans in your computer as Peggy suggested, so do clean them every half year or so.

In SL you can avoid extra heat as follows (the GPU has to work hard on those).

1. Turn off shadows.

2. Decrease the value of Debug setting 'Renderglowstrength' as glow heatens up much.

3. Avoid mesh.

4. Decrease Draw Distance in Preferences.

5. Avoid places where alpha based textures are used by the masses like grass, plants, trees. etc. Usually they aren't a problem but some regions in SL uses them massively like some parks. They heat up the GPU quick.

Other things SL is very sensitive about is speeding up the computer by turbo modes (like the Asus notebooks can) or any overclocking. SL usually becomes crashy.

Personally my viewer crashes whenever i am surrounded by too much mesh objects. Or sometimes even my avi being present at only two objects made of mesh. Mesh is still very buggy and a huge hit on performance, hence crashy.

 

 

 

[Andante Lyric]

Peggy,

Thankfully I came across your reply to Lana about SL constant crashing, specifically your addressing what a crash is versus disconnects. Below is a long winded post that I hope can give you enough information to point me in the right direction for a fix.

I've recently started to disconnect repeatedly from SL (Firestorm viewer, Release version 4.2.2.29837).  I get repeated disconnects whether I use my PC or laptop.

A little background info that might be helpful to you in providing me feedback. Two weeks ago my wife and I switched to Prism television which required the tech to install a new modem and router (basically, Prism television is set up using two DSL lines that are bonded together to provide a 25mb circuit and lets the provider provide you TV plus up to 10mb for internet; we now have 10mbps). SL has been disconnecting since this installation. My laptop runs of the wireless signal provided by the router that was installed, and my PC is hardwired via a modem that is actually plugged directly into an electrical outlet and that mode receives its signal via the electrical wiring from a modem that's hardwired in the same room as the recently installed router.

Prior to having Prism television installed I was using a 6mbps DSL connection that was hard wired into my PC via a modem that had a phone line running directly into it. That modem also fed into a Linksys router which my laptop ran off of.  Firestorm ran great on both my PC and laptop.

Are you aware of any issues with the type of internet connection I now have, and if there are specific settings I can check/make? I get the exact symptoms you pointed out when I disconnect: no walking, no flying or running, the chat stops, etc.

Any help you can provide will be greatly appreciated, believe me.  Sorry if I got a little overboard with my post. Thanks in advance.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

Why do you say mesh objects will heat up the GPU? Did you measure the temps?

I'm not an expert on the subject by any means, but as far as I know the GPU will just transform vertice, texture and shading data into pixels on your screen. If that's the case, mesh objects should be no different to the GPU than any other object SL supports. It should even be a lot easier on the GPU than sculpted objects which are usually far too polygon heavy for what they represent.

It's possible mesh items cause issues such as crashing, but I'd blame that on poor server/viewer or even driver coding before I'd suspect the GPU load. I never experienced any issues with mesh myself other than not being visible sometimes or not loading the highest LoD. This doesn't happen very often either.

Pretty much every 3D program around uses mesh, so I don't see why it would cause any fundamental issues.

[Jhadzia Mfume]

D I T T O ...THIS HAS BEEN HAPPENING TO ME FOR A YEAR NOW.  HALP!!!!