Sys freeze up when converting

[Chris_in_Fl]

Well, I've read almost all of the pages here trying to find an answer as to why ANY AVI to DVD conversion program freezes my system when doing a conversion. Some of the programs allow 60-70% of the avi conversion, some only 20%+/-, some won't even start.
I've tried closing all running pgms, Rebooting with minamal services/pgms/drivers, etc., but cannot get ANY movie converted or ANY conversion pgm to complete the conversion.
Am using my 120g drive for the "temp" drive, so should have enough space, and convert pgm is not on the 'boot' (C:\)drive.
Am getting real frustrated, so need some advice from you experts !

[SingSing]

1. Have you tried TMPGenc ?

2. What other activites will freeze your PC if any ?

3. What did task manager said about the application and the CPU usage when it freezed ?

[mats.hogberg]

I tend to always suspect CPU overheat in these cases. Sometiimes right, sometimes wrong. Checked your CPU temp, and your cooler system? (Dust clogging up the heat sink, fan obstructed...)
Codec problems isn't uncommon too.

/Mats

[Nelson37]

Your profile indicates 6 hard drives in your system. What are temperature readings?

Give approximate times in minutes for freeze. The fact that some do not even start would tend to indicate a problem with either the source file, encoding program, or codecs.

Have you tested a file that is KNOWN TO BE GOOD? By KNOWN I do not mean that it will play, or can be opened. I mean it comes from a reputable source as a demo of XVID or DIVX. Virtually ANY movie downloaded from the internet does NOT fit this definition.

Have you checked the logs in Event Viewer?

When freeze, what is done to restore function? Reboot with power off, CTRL_ALT_DEL, Task manager end task, what?

Have you used different drives for reading the source?

[Bjs]

Your not alone with avi to dvd , it has caused problem's for other user's ... including myself , so I junked it asap .

Grab super ... it works well , but can take time .

If gspot reports you have the right decoder's installed , I would try another less draining method .

Create an avs script , and open it with bbmpeg or bbmpeg_vfw , and setup the required setting's for output , and let it encode to mpeg2 .

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You might be infected without knowing it ... task manager is near useless at showing all running task's and hidden nasties .

First thing I would do is run Avg free , and Ad-Aware SE , and see if anything pop's up ... if yes , and it cannot be dealt with then , grab hijackthis , and run a scan on the pc , the startup scan ... info here

http://www.tomcoyote.org/hjt/

Then head here : http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/forum22.html
And here : http://forums.tomcoyote.org/index.php?

Join both , and then post issue of problematic items ... you'll have better chances at fighting off anything suspect that might be causing pc problems at startup time .

Once you get to a clean point ... you shouldnt have any more problem's ... though it may take a day or too for those in these forum's to come up with the right sollution .

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Furballs in the machine dont help either ... but are not the cause of high cpu usage at startup ... never .

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Grab gspot , and find out what the avi actually is ... if version 6 of divx ... it's a pain .

Install divx6 codec , run program of choosing to re-encode to safer codec such as xvid ... then get rid of divx6 codec ... and it's player , if it was installed ... the less you have of these thing's , the better the pc will work .

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If these clips are from online source's , then you may run into this problem quite often ... remember the saying "buyer beware" ... its now "browser beware" .

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Ps : Was that a slip up ... I dont see sp2 mentioned in pc stats ... consider it .

[Chris_in_Fl]

Thanks for the replies.
To clarify...sys freeze up = lockup! When sys freezes, nothing works-keyboard/mouse/etc. Reboot w/ reset button. when sys reboots, chkdsk does NOT run.

Cooling of puter not an issue, runs about 118-130F.

No info in TaskManager... can't access it anyway when locked up.

Codacs??? will try gspot to see what's there or not there.

lol , no slipup..NO SP2. have been running XP Pro Corp w/sp1 with NO updates for about a year, with no probs. Use ZoneAlarm suite, Hijack, spybot, adaware pro. puter is clean !

The orig file came as (title).xvid.ts.avi. 1st conv pgm would not recognize title so changed to (title).avi.
Conversion pgm on one drive (80g), conversion temp on another drive(120g), orig file and dest file on same drive(40g) {none of which are past 45% full} OS on separate drive

No other issues with sys freezeup with any other pgms....well, occasionally it'll happen when watching an online steaming video, but rarely with normal day to day operations.

The only Event error is : System/ Service Control Manager= "The ScRegSetValueEW call failed for security with the following error-Access Denied" Which I get quite often due to the fact that many of the services are disabled in my OS. (for security reasons) but seems not to affect anything tho.

As you can probably tell, I am a noobee at this type of thing and don't even recognize some of the terms ya'll use. But we'll keep on trying.
Will try the suggested programs and let ya'll know. Tx agin

[Chris_in_Fl]

Back again w/ update.
dl'ed Super v2006.build19. Installed and ran.
Set up: vob DVD compliant
output video codec = MPEG 2
pgm automatically set: mencoader
started...pgm began encoding 1/1 with input 731.298mb
pgm locked up after about 10-12 min of runtime...showed output at 799.781mb.

computer locked up...no mouse, no keyboard...restarted machine with reset button

Checked Super folder, output folder had 2 files...1-Dummy, system file, 0kb.
2- {title of movie}.avi.vob, vob file, 780.136kb

Event log upon reboot shows no app errors, no security errors, and 1 system error: Service Control Manager= "The ScRegSetValueEW call failed for security with the following error-Access Denied"

All of the files/programs/etc were moved and installed on my 120g drive so a space issue shouldn't be a problem.

Ran HiJack, AV, Spam check, adaware check, spybot check just prior to running Super, so don't believe that's an issue. Temps showed 131 on CPU, everything else was in the 118-124 range.

Soooooo, now else do I need to check. Any Ideas?

This has become a battle of wits...Mine (and all of yours) against this stupid(?) computer.

[redwudz]

If you have two sticks of memory, pull one and try it again, then alternate. Bad memory can cause strange problems. And encoding can stress it.

Also you could have a video card problem, though not as likely. If you have one you can trade out, might be worth a try.

From there, I would disconnect all drives but the boot drive and remove all cards except the video card. This should rule other cards and drives out as the problem.

This is sounding more like a hardware problem than software or OS. Eliminating everything that is not causing it is one way to narrow down the possibilities.

More remote possibilities may be a failing power supply or a failing motherboard. And software is still a possibility. But generally software problems leave some clues, such as error logs.

[Nelson37]

If I am reading this right, you have ONE file, downloaded from the Internet, which consistently freezes your PC when performing operations on it?

This is like saying "I ate from a garbage can and I got sick, so there must be something wrong with my digestion system".

I would strongly suspect bad input.

I repeat my earlier suggestion to test the same programs with a KNOWN GOOD source file. Alternate would be to test SEVERAL different AVI, on the theory that at least one out of five or so would not contain any errors. There is no guarantee of this, however. A sample file would eliminate this concern.

On the Event Log entry, carefully check the time of the event with the time of the freeze. If they are close, this could be an issue but I would suspect the event occurs at or near bootup and is not related at all. The time stamp will confirm this.

[mats.hogberg]

cannot get ANY movie converted or ANY conversion pgm to complete the conversion.

Read again...

/Mats

[Nelson37]

I read that as "any portion of the movie in question". This is like when I ask my customers "what new programs did you install between the time that it DID work and the time when it BEGAN to fail". I always ask this more than once and request elaboration on the answer. My experience has been that the first answer is almost always either wrong or incomplete.

"Any movie" could be as I read it, it could be just two from the same set, converted the same way, coming from the same source.

Need confirmation that a KNOWN GOOD source fails in the same way.

[Chris_in_Fl]

Well....tried several of ya'lls suggestions and after some digging, think the fault is not any movie or any conversion pgm. Seems there is some kind of defect in my system which is the ScRegSetValueExW call from some service, and access is denied. Can't yet determine which service, so am digging deeper.
Thanks for all your suggestions and comments. They will help when I DO find this culprit.
Biggest problem now is finding info on the particular call. And of course, MS has no info on it.

Thanks again