comp freezes randomly when using capture card

[Vchat20]

ok. heres the prologue: ive got this old aimslab tv tuner card which has its own OEM software, but alas, its only designed for win9x. So ive pretty much have been forced to use the btwincap drivers that are available in conjunction with whatever software I feel like using at the time. Due to limited pci slots in the computer, I only keep the card in for as long as I really have a need for it, then I pull it out.

For however long ive had the card it has worked just fine without any problems. For whatever reason, the most recent time Ive installed it, no matter what program I use (dscaler, virtualdub, windows media encoder, etc.), it always freezes the computer at random points. could be within 5 minutes of using it, could be hours. But it pretty much requires me to do a hard reboot at this point.

I cant even remotely pinpoint what the problem is. I have tried numerous times to do so, but ive always been disproven in one way or another. first time i had this incident I thought it had some weird reason to do with Azureus because I would always have it running and seeding whatever torrents I had up while watching tv. later it would happen again with azures nowhere in sight. after that it was winamp (because my previous configuration had winamp transcoding the tuner audio from a secondary sound card to the main sound card). later when I had been using dscaler and had headphones on hooked up to the second soundcard (no winamp in sight), it happened again. after that it was dscaler. later it would happen in virtualdub as well.

anyways, comp specs are located above (comp specs button). It would be nice to find out if anyone else has had this problem and actuall has a working solution. Ive been racking my brains trying to figure this one out.

[FulciLives]

Perhaps you ruined your capture card or worse yet your PCI slot by taking it in and out all the time.

Maybe try cleaning the capture card (the part that plugs into the motherboard) with a toothbruth. I know that sounds silly but I read about it here and it worked for me on a card that had been working irratically before. After cleaning it that way it worked again.

We are talking a clean no toothpaste toothbrush LOL

- John "FulciLives" Coleman