Problems with TMPGEnc

[maccool111]

Recently I have started to have a major problem with TMPGEnc and it's most recent incarnations of 3XPress and 4XPress.
For no apparent reason I can think of while using these programs my PC shuts down. No crash, no warning it just turns off. Turns off might not be the correct term as I can still hear it running but the monitor goes blank and the mouse and keyboard are dead. The power button fails to restart the PC. In order to get going again I have to turn the main power switch on the back of the PC off then on and then restart with the front power button.
The fault is intermittant as I can leave it encoding multiple files and all will be OK and then the next time it will shut down 10 minutes into the first file.
I don't want to give up using TMPGEnc as I find other Mpeg encoders a very poor second and this includes Win Avi and Main Concept.
Any thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated.
BTW no new hardware added recently and I'm using XP Pro on a 3.0 Gig with 512Mb memory

[fLYtRap]

Start with going back to when you notice changes. There could whole buch of reasons for that including hardware malfunction. Its hard to troubleshoot without more information.

[maccool111]

Probably started about 4 weeks ago. No software added, no hardware added and TMPGEnc is the ONLY program that is affected. Everything else is working fine.
The one thing I have noticed is that System restore will NOT restore to any previous date and the restore point prior to June 11th 2007 is March 19th 2004.

[fLYtRap]

You could pick up some kind of malware or other crap that triggers this occurance. I have been fighthing with some sort of infection in my machine for that past 3 weeks. It is quite possible that you could be affected by something. I'd start testing everything starting with motherboard, processor and memory and at the same time I'd look for spyware.

Update:

Turned off system restore usually indicates that a malware have been installed. Those things are known to do such tricks as this one and also disabling installing of hot fixes, shutting down firewalls, anti viruses and other.