System Crashes During DVD Authoring

[jjpslu]

Hi,

BACKGROUND:
I've been successful in ripping/burning directly from DVD to DVD through DVD Decrypter, but even after troubleshooting according to numerous guides on this and other forums for VCD How To's, I've consistently been experiencing CONSTANT system crashes/reboots while attempting to create a simple DVD to VCD project while using the following programs:

PREFERRED PROGRAMS:
DVD Decrypter, DVD2AVI, TMPGEnc, or DVDx

FILMS USED:
Exit the Dragon - Enter the Tiger, Saving Private Ryan and Ice Age

ISSUE #1:
Ripping to my HDD with DVD Decrypter or SmartRipper is flawless, but my system totally crashes/reboots in the middle of (<30 min into)DVD2AVI, DVDx, or TMPEnc.

ISSUE #2:
Even after trying all of the prescribed remedies on this forum (Options / Environmental Settings / VFAPI plugin / increasing DS MM File Reader priority, installing DivX, Xvid, encoding to a different hard drive, uninstalling all other apps, reinstalling different versions, etc.), I'm still receiving the notorious "file unsupported..." error as well.

l've not been able to successfully load both a video and its corresponding audio file to date, even after what I believed was possibly a "successful" DVD2AVI .d2v and .wav project on one occasion.

STEPS TAKEN:
I have reformatted my HDD - averaging 2x per week now, reinstalled XP Pro and nothing else except DVD Decrypter 3.1.4.0, SmartRipper 2.41, DVD2AVI 1.77.3, EZDVD2VCD 1.4, WinDVD Platinum, TMPGEnc 2.59.47.155 and DVDx 2.1, but am still CONSTANTLY experiencing PC crashes/reboots!

PC PROFILE:
EMachine T4150 - 1.5g P4 Intel 845, 1gSDRAM, 400MHz bus, Form Factor Micro ATX, 100GB HDD (40+60), 32mb nVidia TNT2 M64 AGP, HP DVD200i, WinXP Pro SP1.

Monitoring my system's performance , while running any of the above programs, shows fluctuation between 97%-100% CPU usage, until it crashes/reboots, with absolutely no other application running at all.

I apologize for the length of this post, but I'm now VERY desperate and am beyond sanity, as I have been trying to solve this for over 3 weeks now!

Unfortunately, I'm leaning towards my crappy components as the culprit to my CONSTANT crashes, but I was hoping that someone out there had similar experiences, subsequent solutions and wouldn't mind saving a disenchanted Newbie from totally giving up on his exciting new hobby!

Thanx for any and all assistance!

John
jjp1@optonline.net

[jpetrick]

A couple of things come to mind.......First, if you have over-clocked your Pent-IV, remove the over-clocking. Make sure that your case has plenty of cooling so the chip is not shutting down in over-temp because of the high % of useage, and lastly, make sure your Virtual Memory is set correctly. It is also possible, slim possibility, your Pentium IV is defective. I also just remembered, make sure that your hard drive is not useing something like IBM's Disk Accelerator. Hope this helps a little. That's all I can think of at the moment, but I'm sure other users can contribute also. Good Luck!!!

[SLK001]

The first thing I did was search your message for "XP" and guess what? I found it. People have reported compatibility issues with XP based OS for quite some time. If possible, try loading W2K. I never used XP so I can't offer you any work-arounds (but they do abound).

[jjpslu]

Hi,

I have been considering reinstalling Win2000 instead of XP as well.

I am not using "overclocking," will try increasing Virtual Memory and believe that my case should be cooling adequately.

I am not sure what "IBM's Disk Accelerator" refers to?

I appreciate the helpful starting points, and any other recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

Thanx!

John
jjp1@optonline.net

[jpetrick]

One other point I just remembered.....If you have Norton or McAffy Anti-Virus or any other TSR's running, shut them down before useing any processor intense operations.

[jjpslu]

One other point I just remembered.....If you have Norton or McAffy Anti-Virus or any other TSR's running, shut them down before useing any processor intense operations.

Yes, that was the first thing I did; I actually installed no other application except for the ones listed above, and it still crashes.

Are there any other hardware configuration recommendations out there since I do not have any other apps installed, let alone running, at all?

Thanx!

John
jjp1@optonline.net