New computer FREEZES completely during render (Sony Vegas 11)

[ShaneJensen]

I'm a long time user of Sony Vegas. Been using since V4. Currently have V11 (x64). I've also always built my own PCs with no trouble at all. Well just last week I built a new PC, or rather upgraded my motherboard and processor, for the fourth or fifth time since I started doing this almost ten years ago. Never had an issue with Vegas until now. When I try to render a video to MPEG2 for DVD authoring, the whole computer totally freezes solid at about 5% through the render. I have rendered on an external hard drive, a secondary internal, and the main hard drive where I'm running my operating system. All same results. Doesn't matter what location I'm rendering the file to, my brand new system just totally freezes. I'm running Windows 7 x64. Reformatted my main hard drive and reinstalled Windows 7 fresh when I upgraded my hardware. The only thing I didn't upgrade was my RAM and hard drives. Those I'm using the same with my old motherboard and processor. I don't know if it could be the RAM or bad processor. But this really blows because the system is basically new with the main hardware being replaced like that. It's an AMD eight core processor.

Here are links to all the exact pieces of hardware that I'm using showing all specs. If anyone has any ideas what this could be or what I could do from here, please help me. Thanks in advance.

The first three are the new items I just got. Following those are the items I already had.

Motherboard:
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131736

Video card:
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130625

Processor:
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103960

Now the items I've had from my previous setup that I'm using with my current setup with the three new items above.

RAM (two sets of two):
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231314
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231185

Hard drive for running operating system (Windows 7):
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136296

DVD burner:
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151187

This is all my system consists of right now. I do not have any of my other hard drives in the computer. But the results are the same even when rendering videos from the main hard drive. Freezes up the whole computer.

[aedipuss]

could be a heat - cpu hsf problem. use something like coretemp to monitor during encoding. ram checking software is also available like - http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetrade/tp/memorytest.htm

[ShaneJensen]

I don't know. I'm using a really good heatsink and thermal compound. This is what I'm using.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103065
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835100007

[poisondeathray]

Do you have current certified graphics card drivers installed?

Does exporting other formats from the same project induce freezing (not mpeg2, something else like avc/mp4) ?

Can you run some system stability tests while monitoring temps e.g. prime95, occt, linx .

Memory issues usually cause blue screen , but you can run some memory integrity tests as well e.g. memtest86+

[ShaneJensen]

Yes, I have all proper drivers installed that came with all the hardware, plus all the updates I ran on the computer for all software and drivers.

However, I seem to have found the problem. Apparently it was due to overclocking. My bios was already set by default to a higher memory speed than what my RAM speed actually is.

What I did was run a memory test and the computer shut down before it was finished. When I rebooted I got an F1 error during boot and it said there was an overclocking error. Bingo. I went right into the bios and found that the speed setting didn't match the speed of my RAM. Don't know why I never noticed that before. I tweaked the memory speed settings to match that of what the hardware speed of the RAM actually is, and all seems to render fine now when using Sony Vegas. Whew.

I tweaked a few other things in the bios as well to make sure everything runs at the rated performance of each piece of hardware. No more problems. Don't know why the bios was set that way by default, but it just goes to show that you must know your settings, hardware ratings, and how to properly adjust your bios as needed accordingly. I will eventually get new RAM that can handle up to the maximum of what the motherboard can handle, but at least I can use this for now with no problems. Will wait a few more paychecks before I pour more money into the computer and get the new RAM. Haha... Thank goodness this issue was only something as simple as a setting and not bad hardware.

Thank you all for your great suggestions. Still things we should probably do now and then to make sure our computers are running good to stay ahead of the game before any real errors pop up causing damage to our hardware. I may still run all those tests to make sure everything is tip top. Thanks again for all the good advice and suggestions.