Computer reboots when running SL.

[Kirra]

OS: Win7 Home 64

Processor: Intel i7-740QM 1.73

GPU Nvidia GTX 460M 1.5gb

Ram: 8GB 1066mhz

HD 500GB (7200)

HD SSD: 90GB Sata 2

I've used SL viewer, Firestorm, and Singularity. Singularity causes less crashes than the other two. I'm pretty sure this is not a heat issue. I've ran stress test on the GPU chip and it gets up to 86C and doesn't crash. SL normally runs at in the mid 60C range and still crashes (although its crashed in the 50s several times too). CPU temp mirrors GPU. Not sure what is going on my best guess is that the GPU is timing out while running SL. For some reason the OS can't recover and the computer crashes.

Edit. 

Its the GPU.  It fails when stressed.  I've ruled out just about everything else.  Thank you all for your suggestions.  I went through all the scenarios presented to come to this conclusion.  Its unfortunate it is a GPU failure on a obsolete laptop.  Meaning if the failure progresses the comp is an oversized paper weight. 

[Rolig Loon]

That's a good guess.  Take a look to see what your ping time is.  It will be near the top in your Statistics Bar (CTRL + Shift + 1).  If it's much over 150 ms, signals are taking too long to travel from your viewer to the servers or vice versa.  You'll start to get rubber banding -- that jerky movement that you sometimes associate with a sim crossing -- and you'll find that processes time out and you crash.   I typically run about 50ms ping time.  Europeans are running closer to 150 ms, and Australians complain a lot about timeouts.  They are just too far away from LL's servers in San Francisco and Dallas.  The v1 codebase viewers are a liittle more tolerant of long ping times and high packet loss than the V3 codebase viewers, so that might explain why Singularity works better for you.  Maybe.

 

[Peggy Paperdoll]

You're temps look pretty typical for use with SL.  I would agree that heating is not the cause.  There are a couple of other things that could also cause your operating system to crash.  One is a corrupted driver (most probably a video driver).  You might try updating or re-installing the driver.  A clean driver installation is always best and especially so if you suspect a corrupted (or damaged driver).  Remove the driver you are replacing before installing the new driver (be sure to get a fresh copy of the driver from nVidia.....don't use the same driver you might have saved earlier (if you did that......which I recommend).  The other possibility is your system memory.  You have 8 GB which means you probably have two 4 GB sticks.  Remove one (you'll still have 4 GB which is plenty for SL) and see if the problem persists.  If not then replace that memory module........if it does then put the module you removed back in and remove the other.  The problem should go away when you get the module that is having issues.  Check your computer manual (or motherboard manual) to see which slot must be populated when using one stick.  It the problem remains, then it gets sticky about what is causing the problem.  Almost any hardware device can crash your system and it can get tedious to find the culprit.  Then there's always the possibility that you have a faulty video card (or other device....even a CPU).  Sometimes it's best to just take it to some reliable repair shop when it gets complicated.

[Nyll Bergbahn]

You've already got some good advice. I'm just going to add that you should try disabling HTTP Textures in the viewer. You do this by activating the Develop Menu. CTRL+ALT+D to open the Advanced Menu on your top bar then select the Develop Menu from it. Once the Develop Menu appears select HTTP Textures to disable it. The tick will disappear. The short cut to the Develop Menu is CTRL+ALT+Q so another way of getting to it.

HTTP Textures cause problems for many in SL Some Third Party viewers such as Niran's have it disabled by default..

On ping times, I'd love to be getting 150ms but I usually only get 180-190ms yet achieve very good performance and rarely ever crash. Going well over 200 to 250ms and you may very well experience issues.

[Peggy Paperdoll]

"Computer reboots when running SL." is the title of the thread. That's a little more than SL crashing......it's a system crash. Ping times, excessive packet loss, HTTP textures, etc might crash the viewer but none of those will crash the system. The GPU timing out as the OP mentioned might cause a system crash but that's something in the GPU or driver that would cause that problem. Not high pings or HTTP texture calls.

 

On further thought a virus could be the cause. So to the OP run a complete virus/spyware scan too.

 

[Nyll Bergbahn]

oh true...the Huawei routers my ISP provide hate HTTP Textures and regularly crashed me before I discovered the cause and disabled it. Usually crashed my internet too and often I had to reboot to get into SL again, but yes, it never forced a reboot.