My graphics card is dying on its arse, I'm really struggling when I log into Second Life. Are there any general fixes I can try to my setup that any of you can recommend? When I first got this card I could run SL in the top graphics mode all the fricking time..now I'm using Med unless I try to take a picture, quickly.

time for a new one!

Yes, I’ve sent a message to Santa

I used to have overheating issues until I installed a liquid cooling system and that helped my graphics card a lot.

computers now need a lot more memory and need adequate cooling

Possible your power supply is fading out, how old is it? Most of em only last a few years, and the first sign of trouble is that they have problems running a graphics card in 3d mode.