SOS capturing problems - dropping frames

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Originally Posted by Adi Head

Well guys... thanks for all the effort to help me get this straightened out. unfortunately, i've tried pretty much everything you've suggested so far except for going out and buying a new firewire cable.

i've pretty much come to the conclusion that it might be a good time anyway to make a clean installation of windows, format the c: drive, install my software applications from new and start from fresh.

if this doesn't solve the problem, i'll go and get a new firewire cable.... hopefully at that stage - the new cable will do the trick. if not..... i'll be up shit creek, will probably have to start swapping hard drives and stuff.

i'll update this thread with outcomes.

that's all for now.... cheers

It's faster to reinstall than running to the store and buying a new cable? Wow! I want your system.

[Adi Head]

Unfortunately..... i'm already back with yet another post. haven't reinstalled my windows yet. Ran into MORE COMPLICATIONS.

I already have a rope handy, I just haven't been able to figure out how to tie the noose knot. otherwise, i doubt if i'd be around to post this message....

Anyway..... in order to MAKE SURE i'm doing everything properly, i performed a quick search on google and found "tweakhound - the right way to install windows xp"

http://www.tweakhound.com/xp/installxp/installXP1.htm

Following their instructions step by step, i got to the part where they say:
_____________________
"Prepare Your Computer
Turn off your power supply and monitor. Unplug the power supply. Now unplug everything from the back of the computer. Take the left side (as you look at the front) of the computer case off. On some cases the top and sides are one piece, if so remove the whole thing. Vacuum the inside of the computer, especially around the fans. It may be necessary to remove the front cover to adequately clean in front of the front fan. A can of compressed air helps tremendously with this."
This is a great time to add any hardware!
Put it all back together. Plug everything back in. Turn on your power supply. Start up the computer and make sure everything works. Shut it off again.
_______________________

so..... after using a can of compressed air to clean out the inside of my computer a bit, and washing out the washable front dust filter, i put the cover back on, plugged in the power and switched the PC on.

expecting a normal windows start up, chimes, desktop, icons and all... instead.... i got a blue screen with a windows icon in the upper right hand corner and CHKDSK started checking my L: drive (which is one of three partitions i have in my 160GB dedicated hard drive for media files, there's K:, L: and M:) for consistency. My L: is a 60GB partition out of the total 160GB and still has about 19GB free on it.

so I let CHKDSK check the drive and waited for my desktop to load up. then I restarted my computer to see if whatever problems where identified in my L: drive had been fixed. This time windows started up fine, desktop came up, no CHKDSK... BUT... opening my My Computer icon, i saw that the whole dedicated hard drive (all partitions K:, L: and M:) was not there. only my C: drive was there.

Frowning, I turned my computer off, opened up the side panel again, made sure all connections where in place and switched the power back on.

this time CHKDSK came on again, and once more set about checking the L: partition. Just to make things more interesting... THIS time... when it got to the part where it says: "verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)" the checking progress started at "completing 0 percent", then rather slowly advanced to "completing 1 percent" and stopped there. i waited for a good 15 minutes and it was still at "completing 1 percent". After about 20 minutes it finally reached 2 percent!

turned off computer. turned on again. this time my frown had turned into a blank expression of total apathy and numbness. the result of my rebooting remained the same. CHKDSK checks L: and then gets unbearingly sluggish on stage 4 - verifying file data, advancing about 1 percent every 20 minutes. tried once more. no good. i can't begin to describe what i feel at the moment... and there's a couple who should be back from their honeymoon in a few days hoping to gather around with friends and family to view the DVD i'm supposed to edit and make of their wedding.....

my questions are:

1. do you think this has to do with my capturing video problem? (i was trying to capture to my K: partition, but i DID try once to capture to my C: drive which is a different hard drive)

2. what do i do now????

if this helps any, here are the specs of my miserable machine:

Intel P4 2.4 800 processor
Intel D865PERL motherboard
HEC 300W power supply
Matrox Millennium G550 32MB video card
M-Audio Audiophile 2496 sound card
Hynex 2x256MB DDR 400 memory
WD 120GB 7200 RPM 8MB cache drive (one partition - C - this is where i store windows and software)
WD 160GB 7200 RPM 8MB cache drive (three partitions - K, L & M - dedicated for storing media files)

all are a bit over 2 years old, except for sound card (1.5 years), 160GB hard drive (a bit under 2 years)

if you don't think this is the right forum to post this kind of question... i'm getting more and more into hardware technical stuff that doesn't really have anything to do with video, dv or sony vegas.... and you know if a more appropriate forum - i'd be happy to get a link. i've already posted on The TechGuys Help Forum, but still haven't got a reply.

... sigh... thanks.

[Adi Head]

regarding your accurate remarks about the new cable vs. reinstalling windows... it's true, faster and easier to buy a new cable. but because of the complicated issue of different anti virus softwares getting all screwy with me and forcing me to start meddling around in my registration and whatnot... and because i know it's a recommended thing to do, every now and again (which i haven't done since buying the computer a bit over 2 years ago)... i decided to go ahead and do a clean re-installation.

in any case... in light of my new problem... the question is sadly irrelevant.

[Dionyssios Chalkias]

If, as you say, you are not a very tech person then don't do another thing. Get a pc specialist do further investigating, you risk loosing your drive's contents. First thing would be connecting your drive to another computer and trying to backup your files...

My very wild guess is that your ide controller has bad connections, but it could be a lot of other things, a drive developping bad sectors etc.

[Ken Pike]

Adi,

To rule out a bad cable, can you get access to another pc with a firewire port and some sort of capture program? Just a thought...it might help to narrow things down a least a bit and, perhaps, reduce your stress level a notch or two.

Good luck...I know the feeling.

Ken

[Adi Head]

Ken,

i have a laptop, but it's firewire port is 4-pin, so won't be able to use the same cable.

doesn't seem like i have another option. not an immediate one.

my main concern at the moment is getting my hard drive to work properly.

thanks.


Dionyssios,

there's a good chance I'll end up taking my computer to a pc technician. but i'd still want to give it a go, if i had the proper instructions.

it's not like i've never held a screwdriver in my life.... i do have some technical common sense and i know a thing or two about computers, but i'd still say I'm far from being one of those guys that take apart their computers every week and rebuild them, over-clocking, cracking programs and whatnot. it's mostly the jargon that throws me off. but if I'm given clear instructions and some basic explanaition of what I'm doing - i'll be ok.

adi

[Adi Head]

hello again. just a short update.

1. used western digital diagnostic utility to zero problematic hard drive.
2. formatted both hard drives
3. fresh installed windows, drivers and software apps.
4. bought new firewire cable

result: the hard drive seems to be working fine now. but i'm still getting the same results when trying to capture from my pd150 - dropping frames like crazy. withing 30 seconds of capturing, the dropped frames counter is already in the hundreds.

so i guess the hard drive problem and the capture problem didn't have anything to do with eachother.

two options remain: ) something wrong with camera (maybe it's just the firewire port), 2) something wrong with the firewire port in my computer.

[Adi Head]

i want to hook up my pd150 to a different computer to try and isolate the problem.

there's an hp notebook i can use, but it only has a 4-pin firewire port (the smaller kind). if i get the right cable, will i be able to catpure video with the pd150 through a 4-pin firewire port?

from what i know, the difference between 6-pin firewire and 4-pin is that the 6-pin enables the device to get power through firewire as well. with 4-pin firewire you'de need to power up the device with an AC adaptor. but i'm not sure that's the ONLY difference. what do you think?

[Lars Siden]

Hello,

Sorry to hear that your problems still aren't fixed! You had another firewire device that worked 100% so I'd guess that the firewire is working properly.

My guess is that your chipset/IDE/Sata drivers are old/not installed.

When doing a fresh install of windows you will need to:

1. Install Win Xp
2. Install chipset drivers
3. Install ide/sata drivers
4. Install XP SP2
5. Install gfx/sound drivers
6. Install Vegas etc

best regards,

Lars Siden

[Seth Bloombaum]

Originally Posted by Adi Head

... if i get the right cable, will i be able to catpure video with the pd150 through a 4-pin firewire port?...

Yes. 4-pin is just fine.

Regarding the dropped frames problem - are you sure that your pc is not infected with a virus or trojan that is chewing up processor cycles? How about adware? If you don't run antivirus, try the freeware AVG from grisoft.com.

Somewhere up this thread there was reference to other apps chewing up proc cycles - you check this by opening task manager (ctrl-alt-del) and reviewing applications and processes. You can quickly find out if you need this or that process by searching on the name in google. (eg. avgupsvc.exe is my antivirus updater, I don't need that during capture). You may also discover malware this way. you mentioned podutil - don't need that either during capture.

Finally, it's always a good idea to unplug from the network during capture and not run any other applications.