Hmm, strange problem with a new computer

[dinkob]

Ok, so far I can't complain too much for my new PC but this thing is driving me nuts.

And to top it all it happens frequently but it takes about 1:30 hr,min for this to happen.

My new motherboard is Gigabyte GA-8S661 FXM with a 3.0 CPU HT.

Memory is DDR 2100 512Ram (yea it works)
or another stick by itself which is 2700 DDR 256Ram for testing.

So all the other hardware was transferred from my old PC such as Hauppage WinTV NVIDIA Geforce 300 Ti (which has worked great so far), first hard disk 80 Gig, second 160 Gig

So yeah my capture now goes little different (I am able to leave the preview window on while capturing at higher resolutions (such as 640x480)) and it works great but there is one BIG problem for me.

I am using VirtualDub 1.4.9.2 VCR Sync proggy because of it's nice timer feature.

(While typing this I am capturing something and it's about the hit the critical point).

So I am capturing and all of a sudden it will just hang at about anywhere between 1hr:20min or 1:39 (it hasn't gone above that point yet).

there it just hang at 1:31:12 - 25.81 Gigs and the windows explorer reports 28 Gig filesize.

Ok I will try some troubleshooting on my own (And I have done much of it by now) but has anyone else experienced this?

I am beginning to think something wrong with either CPU or MOBO.

This is taking so much of my time I am ready to dump this computer in garbage.

[reboot]

Are you sure you're capturing to a partition bigger than 25.81 gigs?
Are you capturing an uncompressed avi?
Have you checked the disk for errors?
Is your capture partition/disk the same as the OS (hopefully not, just checking).
Have you got virtualvcr to record endlessly? ( I think there's a setting in there somewhere).

[pfh]

So you're saying Vdub hangs? Or is the capture freezing? Or is the whole comp. freezing?
If Vdub is hanging then I doubt you could blame the cpu. Could be a BIOS update issue but I doubt it since it appears your using hardware that's older than the BIOS. That is, I doubt flashing the bios would cure your ills.
You say you can finally leave the preview open @640x480 ?? I don't get it- I preview in a window @720x480 all the time with a AMD 2500+ What are you referring to here?
Have to ask- did you update all drivers?
Has this situation occured with any other programs?

[dinkob]

Virtualdub - hangs - YES
Capture freezes - YES
Whole computer freezes - NO (I can just close it and resume what I was working on).

Occasionally just while the preview is on the program would just stop responding (with no capture being done - just preview mode).

Yeah sorry I left some stuff out.

This is so far that I can tell the only buggy application. Power DVD XP 4 is the one that also has some issues but patch fixes it from their website.

(division by zero error when rightclicking during playback).

I upgraded from a Pentium 3 1.0ghz to Pentium 4 3.0ghz so yeah it's somewhat of a big jump.

I haven't tested virtualvcr fully yet, since I am using VFW hauppage drivers for NT.

OS is win2k and my capture drive is different than the OS.

Right now I have decided to strip my system down completely (no cd-rom, no USB, no AGP card, no Network, just whatever can get me to get to capture.

and about 640x480 preview I couldn't do it with my old P3, it would stutter A LOT while the preview was on.

It was just a comment on the upgrade benefits.

[proxyx99]

Could be:
memory timing or bad/incompatible memory and CPU overeating typical for random stall/reboot

software issue although possible I think less likely (kill backgroud apps in MSConfig) quite easy to troubleshoot

other hardware and peripherals? cannot be excluded but least likely, would be more of a problem whatever you do.

I'd check BIOS settings, try to go with failsafe (slowest memory timing), disable USB, network...
I would leave AGP alone and load new drivers.

Uninstall PowerDVD if you suspect it but I don't think so. Your error may be caused by memory or video.

BIOS is the place to start troubleshooting. If you have 2 different mem. chips remove 1. You have to be consistant. Decide on the environment and start eliminating.

[dinkob]

1:35 So far no hang yet. I am using onboard video card along with minimum hardware enabled (no network, no USB).

I might use this opportunity to say something else.

The very first power supply that came with this unit blew out (350 Watts) - then I found something "on sale" (or shall I say cheap) at krex (local shop) for 25 bucks.

This was 400 Watts and after 4 hours of usage it would disable USB 2.0 speed (I would have to disable Enhanced USB controller in Device Manager in order to get devices to be recognized on these ports; otherwise they would show up as unknown device).

Then FINALLY I got Antec 480 Watts supply that got that issue fixed with USB 2.0 ports.

So now the system has been good with that and this is the only thing remaining that I can tell has been bugging me.

Crap it hang at 1:39:01.

I'll try some other stuff with BIOS and Fail Safe defaults. Then if it doesn't work I guess I can't do much anymore.

EDIT: Ok I'll give it a shot a couple more times. Right now I decided to just go with the basic checkdisk and defrag of the drive (ok I'll admit that I was lazy with this but I just moved it from my old computer that was working fine to this new one so I doubt that it would be defrag in question).

Next up is probably Fail Safe defaults and that's it, back with my NVIDIA card.

I also tried with SiS updated drivers and just about everything else updatded and it didn't work (that was yesterday as I have reinstalled OS .

As far as the temperature goes (usual temp in BIOS is 55 while the software that came with the Motherboard reports 45 in mmc). The high temp is 62 which is within the safe boundary but again the CPU usage is quite small when capturing with YUY2.

I think the processor can go up to 72 C safely.

Thanks all for inputs.

[reboot]

Try using the WDM drivers, and "overlay" for live viewing, not WM9 (or whatever the other option is).
I never could get the VFW drivers working for my old BT878 card.

[Nelson37]

Did I read correctly that the hard drive was simply transferred from the old PC to the new one, and was not reformatted?

With two machines of that age difference, there have been significant changes in IO setup such that I would definitely fdisk, format, and reinstall all software. Elimination of outdated and unneeded drivers alone would justify the hassle factor.

You state that the software locks up when just previewing, not capturing.
This would virtually eliminate most performance-related issues and point to a corrupted file or driver, or some sort of hardware conflict. Have you tried turning off audio, and also not using the timer program, and also capture to some compression codec to reduce file size to determine if problem is related?

Bad power supplies can cause a multitude of strange problems. If original was under warranty, and mobo is too, I would try to obtain a replacement mobo just in case it was damaged. You might need to emphasize slightly the extent of your problem to obtain a replacement.

[dinkob]

EDIT: At this point I think I am just going to try to relax and leave it for some other day. It's going nowhere like this me trying to test it and just play with it.

The preview Hang - yes I keep forgetting about that fact therefore much of my problem can be narrowed down.

I am working on some other stuff right now but I'll get back to ya all when I try something Else.

Honestly I am just about ready to go and just buy a different brand mobo - probably ASUS.

[Prot]

I don't think it's been mentioned, but are your hard drives formatted as FAT32 or NTFS? FAT32 has a partion size limit of 32 gig, and from what your are describing, you ran out of disk space.
Personally, I can't see the need to record in a format that requires 25+ gig space for only about 1:30 of video.
Before you dump the computer, though, you may want to consider getting a new TV tuner card. Hauppage has cards with built in MPEG encoding, and only takes about 2 gig per hour when captured at DVD resolution.

[mpojeep]

I'd have to agree with Nelson37.If you just moved you hard drive from your old computer to your new one without reformatting it,you're just asking for problems. If I were you,I would reformat the hard drive to NTFS and start from scratch.

[cd090580]

Maybe you have a problem similar to this:

Why does my video capture stop at 1 hour, 11 minutes, but I still get audio? 
This is a bug in many video capture drivers. The exact limit is actually 232 microseconds, or 1 hour, 11 minutes, 34 seconds. Many TV tuner devices are susceptable to this bug, as are the miro/Pinnacle DCxx devices; you may be able to fix the problem simply by upgrading to the latest capture drivers. There are two incarnations of this problem. In the non-fatal version, video frames are still sent to the application, but the timestamp on the video stream starts over from zero. VirtualDub will correct for this problem automatically, allowing you to capture beyond 71 minutes. The other possibility is that the driver stops sending data altogether. VirtualDub will notify you if this occurs, but will not be able to capture past 71 minutes in this case.

Vanilla capture devices based on the Conexant/Brooktree BT848/878 reference drivers are usually either immune to the problem or have the non-fatal form of it. I'm told that the bug in Pinnacle's DC30(+) drivers still exists but is nonfatal as of the 1.41a drivers. As of this writing, the bug in the DC10/10+/20/20+ drivers is fatal and cannot be worked around.

There are apparently a few drivers that are even susceptable to half this limit (35 min.) due to using signed 32-bit arithmetic.  VirtualDub does not yet detect or attempt to bypass the 35 minute limit that results.

[dinkob]

Hey guys thanks for all your help. It looks like I resolved it but it will have to wait till later since I want to verify this.

[dinkob]

Hey guys.

I wanted to bump this thread so I can keep you updated.

Basically I could end up having a bad CPU however, I also have found a way to fix this.

(I used up a CPU of lower speed to determine the link).

I lowered the CPU frequency from 200 to 100 Mhz (3.0E P4) and that fixed the problem.

(I am not sure if I mentioned but I did replace the motherboard and it has a much nicer feel to it now).

So that is done but Now I am trying to determine if my CPU is busted (I had some grease get over some pins and I did clean it up but I am still not sure of how well I cleaned it up)