ok. first how complex are we talking.. could you tell use a poly face count ? or a idea of how complex so fare ? and also knowing how much RAM you have will help. Also what operating system ? and grafix card. All would be helpfull.

My maya scene isn't really complex....the model has only x faces and the rest are two image planes...(maybe the image planes too large?is that possible?)

256MB RAM
p4 2.4Ghz
xp home edition
graphic card: its only a RADEON 7500
Someone said me that all the Radeon cards are not suitable for doing 3d stuff.....
I want to supplement that maya directly shuts down if i make a poly merge operation or use the cut faces tool...did it not install correctly??