Help with my Editing desktop...please
 

Hello all-
I hope someone can help since I no longer know who to ask.
This is my setup....
PC I built myself.
MSI PT880 Neo motherboard
Pentium 4 3.2 ghz
1 gig Kingston dr400 memory
2 internal 120g sata drives (1 western digital/1 Maxtor)
1 external 250g drive via usb 2.0 (for video use only)
BFG Nvidia GE Force 5200 video card
350w PSU

Dual boot OS. The one I use for editing is the Western digital drive with ONLY win xp pro sp2 and Vegas 6.0c with DVD Architect 3. All are fresh install. Auto updates are off, no anti-virus running, no screensaver...Everything running good. Able to surf net but limited due I don't want to even pick-up any viruses or what not. I use the other OS for that. Able to edit on vegas but as soon as I render.... maybe 10% in to it, I get a BSOD. Either vegas.exe crashed or something went haywire with xp. I ran memtest86 and ended up replacing my memory sticks due to failure. Now, I tested the new ones and still they fail. I'm headed back to Fry's for replacement. I checked the System and CPU temperature and they are normal. Could this be a Motherboard failure or something? Like I said, Everything is stable until I run Vegas and start to render. The file I am trying to render is a straight avi that is about 1.5 hours in length and has a couple of cross fades due I am adding opening/closing credits. I try again and I watch the render process with the Task Manager open and I see the cpu usage is up between 88%-98% and sometimes hitting the 100% usage (is this normal?, can somebody check?). Page file is stable at 312. I've pretty much read on this and researched what I can. I'm hoping that somebody can assist. Could it be software or hardware? What steps should I take.......
I know first thing is to replace my memory sticks since they're bad. but then what??

Appreciate the help. Thank you!!
Joven

Joven:

It is probably your hardware that is faulty.

The MSI website should have a voltage temperature monitoring tool for your computer. Maybe something is overheating, or the power supply voltages run out of spec when the computer is under load.

Hi Glenn-
Thanks for the response....
Anyway, so that if this same thing happens to others.... this is my remedy. I did replace the faulty (?) memory sticks and still my computer was doing the same thing. Tested the memory sticks with memtest and still failed. I figure it was motherboard and drivers. Got lucky this morning. I flashed the BIOS and updated a USB 2.0 driver from microsoft and added a patch that VIA had on their site and so far so good. Vegas is stable with 2 files rendered. I hope it stays that way.

If anybody can....please check your windows task manager to see how much is your CPU Usage when you're rendering? I'm still using around 88%-96%. It would be nice to compare..

Thank you all!!

No doubt, rendering is a CPU job. 77-97% usage, and my CPU overclocks to the maximum I allow it to (from P3,4 to 3,5). Never had crashes.

USB 2.0 Drive the Problem
 

Joven:

I ve had crashes like this too. So far, it seems to happen when using the USB 2.0 drive. I have had some people indicate we should be using a firewire external drive.

The other thing is that we may just be experiencing CPU or memory overheating. I did have one report sent of to MS, and got a return that indicated that problem might be overheating. I run a dual core AMD 3800+, using the fan that comes with the chip. (AMD's literature says don't use anything else or you void the warranty. I may be considering voiding the warranty.)

As far as setting up my bios, I have been running it on the "best preformance " preset, and I am thinking I will reset it too "optimal" to see if the issue goes away.

With the little bit of Vegas experience Ive had though, I m thinking problem is related to USB 2.0 Drive.

Hi Chris-
I have been able to render and Vegas is now stable. If you are using VIA driver for your USB, you need to look at their website for another patch that you use after you install the microsoft USB driver. Seems like that worked for me. Also check that you are using latest BIOS and other drivers.

Vegas is great when you get it tamed. lol.

Thanks
 

Joven:

Thanks, I will check it out. My understanding is that this "dual" core stuff can be a problem too.

As to Microsoft update for USB, is that something different than what I would get by normal automatic update ? If so, can you give me location of where you got it ?

Only if you are using a VIA chipset drivers. I got mine from Motherboard manufacturer which is MSI but I suggest you check "viaarena.com" I think that is VIA's website. If not, just google it.

Hope this helps...Good luck.

Thanks
 

Thanks, Joven.