While encoding Xvid or other MP4 video file, PC will shut down suddenly

[StratPlaya]

Hello, Newbie to this forum but not video stuff.

Lately when transcoding from DVD or WMV to Xvid, my PC will just shut down. It could be after a few mines or after more than an hour of encoding. I know it's not due to overheating and I've monitored the CPU temp and it rises some be remains stable.

Anyone ever hear of something similar?

I've tried Simple Divx , FairUse Wizard 2 LE and Super for these conversion and the same thing happens.

Thanks,
SP

[mats.hogberg]

Update to latest XviD codec? I'd have suspected overheat, but if you say that's not the case, It can't be much else.

/Mats

[tekkieman]

I had a similar problem after adding a new video card. Pure and simple, I was overloading the well underpowered power supply. Your power supply may be starting to fail under load.

[awhite2600]

Both of the posters above could be correct.

I had a similar problem about a year ago. If the computer sat idle, or wasn't doing much (surfing the net) then things were fine. If I tried to do anything CPU intensive (encoding video) then I would get random reboots.

Although my CPU temperature also seemed stable, I think heat was the cause. I gave the motherboard a good cleaning with compressed air and replaced the CPU fan. I suspect that the problem was the crappy fan that came with the CPU. I bought a slightly better aftermarket fan. The random reboots immediately went away.

Even though the CPU temp was constant, I think it had problems running at a high temperature for several hours.

[StratPlaya]

I had a similar problem after adding a new video card. Pure and simple, I was overloading the well underpowered power supply. Your power supply may be starting to fail under load.

I just installed the latest Xvid codec but that did not make a difference. I was thinking it was may be my PS too however, I am currently encoding a WMV file using MS movie maker and my CPU is at 100% for the last hour and still no problems.

Looks like the problem is with the MP4 related software. Maybe I should uninstall and reinstall all the MP4 codecs and amateur software (i.e. Super, SimpleDIVX, etc).

Thanks,
SP

[guns1inger]

Overheating is simple to eliminate as a cause. Take one side off the case and point a small electric fan into the case. Try running an encode. if it succeeds then you know you were running too hot. If it still fails, try disconnecting a HDD to see if it helps power usage.

[smitbret]

I'm gonna have to guess at power supply on this one, too. You are putting a load on the CPU and the PSU isn't able to deliver enough amps so your PC shuts down. What are your system specs?

[StratPlaya]

I'm gonna have to guess at power supply on this one, too. You are putting a load on the CPU and the PSU isn't able to deliver enough amps so your PC shuts down. What are your system specs?

Thanks for your input. My system setup is in my profile.

SP

[StratPlaya]

OK. I think I fixed the problem. Here are the steps I performed although I'm not sure which any one (or group) of actions fixed the issue.

1. I uninstalled all Xvid/Divx related codecs and software.
2. Defraged the hard drive.
3. I used a free registry cleaner called Eusing Free to help clean out the registry.
4. Just to be on the safe side I bought commercial registry cleaner called Registry Mechanic.
It found some more issues that Eusing did not. It was only $24 so I figured why be cheap?
5. I ran spyware software provided by SBC Yahoo and it found one issue and deleted it.
6. I installed the latest version of Xvid.
7. I installed Super again.
8. System crashed again so I uninstalled the latest version of Xvid and installed version 1.0.1.
9. Tried encoding again with Super going from an MPG4 file of med to high quality to XvidMPEG
AVI file suitable for Pocket PC playback.

Conversion completed without a hitch. So I think something corrupted my Xvid code and
installing the latest version caused crashing issues so I went back to the first stable version.

Thanks,
SP

[TimA-C]

Well done on sorting out your problem. Just in case anyone else having a similar problem comes across this thread, I'd also say don't forget about your RAM getting hot. I've got a client with a cheapy I.T. Works PC and one of the two 'matching' sticks of RAM is definitely more temperature sensitive than the other. For the time being I've put heat spreaders on the RAM and this has pretty much solved the problem, but I'm expecting to have to replace the offending DIMM in the not too distant future.

[leghorn]

Sorry to push this stone old thread ...but it describes just the weird behavior I'm experiencing. Whenever I try to encode a video with Xvid (provided with apps or latest standalone) with whatever app, my system typically shows one of these three outcomes:
a. shutdown
b. reboot, or
c. simply lock-up
So bluescreens-of-death so far.
Yet I havent been able to sort it out. The error appears regardless of anything whatsoever (number of running apps; system up-/downtime; encoding settings etc). I cant even tell beforehand which of those three reactions may occur.

The apps I've used are VDub (Xvid VfW), XMediaRecode, MeGUI, xvid_encraw (commandline). It also doesnt matter whether I use the x86 or x64 version.
[edit] You can set VDub to use singe- or multithreaded encoding. This doesnt matter, either. [/edit]

On the other hand I've encoded a lot of videos with multithreaded x264. These encodes run smoothly from first to last frame. No odd behavior.

Some info on my system: i5 2400, 8 GB RAM, Win7 Pro x64, nVidia GeForce GT 430