my laptop shuts down completely again

[Katarina Macalroy]

Some time ago i had problems with my laptop. When i log in to SL, after a few minutes, the whole laptop shuts down completely.
People told me that it was overheating and that I should clean the vents.
So i cleaned the vents and sl worked but now my laptop again shuts down completely.  The manufacturer of my laptop told me that it's not my laptop but sl problem. I really don't know what it could be. Does anyone have a similar experience?

Thanks for help

[LazyMonk]

Hi Katarina,

 

This shutting down like this could be because of a number of things, it's not and SL issue though i'm sure. as there is so many reasons it can do this i think you should take a look at the link below and as you will see it could be hardware or even a virus causing this to happen, anyhoo have a read i hope it helps.

 

Good Luck.

 

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000689.htm

[Rolig Loon]

If cleaning the vents helped, that's a sign that it was overheating.  The responses you got to your earlier post were right on target.  SL is a very demanding graphics environment, so your GPU uses a lot of energy to keep up.  That translates into a lot of heat in the end.   You never took Nalates's advice and posted your machine's specs for us to see, but I suspect that your laptop was not designed to handle this sort of heavy load, so it's screaming for help.

You can take a few preventive steps.

1. Don't try to render more than your GPU can handle.  Reduce your draw distance to something like 64m, and use the Medium quality setting in Preferences >>. Graphics.

2.  Buy yourself a raised platform to put under the laptop.  You can raise the machine off the tabletop with bottle caps or a magazine too, but the advantage of buying one is that you can get one with a fan that blows extra air into the machine.  I have one under my laptop when I use it.  The machine's own fan speeds up nicely when I log on to SL, but the air coming out the exit vents is much cooler than it was before I invested $20 in a raised platform.

3. Go on line and search Google for a free temperature monitoring program to install on your machine.  There are several of them.  A good program will send an alarm when things are getting too hot.

[Marigold Devin]

The manufacturer of the laptop is right in so far as it sounds like your laptop just cannot handle the strain Second Life is putting on it.

Unfortunately it is nothing that Second Life/Linden Lab can fix.

It may, however, be that you would be able to access Second Life and your computer remain running, with one of the approved third party viewers. 

Speaking from my own experience, this desktop runs like a dream if I use one of the less heavy viewers; Imprudence or Phoenix - but (and it is a Big Billy But), to get the full SL experience, as it constantly evolves, we are all expected to use the newest viewers that expect far more from our systems/graphics card than ever before, and sadly that does seem to be pricing some of us out of the market.

Anyway, did we see your system specifications anywhere?  Its useful to know, not least because other users running similar systems can advise what to tweak, if it is possible to tweak something to get you in and running ok.