AboutBrian Benosky Expertise I will answer all pc related hardware and software questions. I can troubleshoot Windows OS errors (including Vista) and other software problems. You can be assured of a prompt, polite, and knowledgeable response.
Experience I have over 25 years experience in using, building, and repairing computers. I am a Top Contributer of General Computing answers in Yahoo! Questions with over a 70% Best Answer rating.
Education/Credentials College Educated
Self-taught Computer Skills
Expert: Brian Benosky Date: 6/27/2008 Subject: Computer shuts down while converting Video to DVD
Question QUESTION: Hello Brian,
I have a comp running on a Core2Duo 2.66 GHZ chip with 2 GB DDR2 RAM on a Biotech motherboard with integrated Nvidia 7050/610i graphics processor. I was using an older motherboard with 1 GB of DDR1 RAM and have changed over to the new MB on Friday 20th June 2008. I seem to have a problem with converting video files. I use TMPGEnc DVD Author 3.0 to convert my AVI files to DVD. The problem started about a month ago when my computer started shutting down in the middle of the conversion process. So i assumed that the RAM had something to do with it and upgraded my RAM from the 512mb that i had to 1 GB. Inspite of that my problems continued. So i then decided to change the whole motherboard(the main reason being DDR1 was getting expensive and i anyways wanted to upgrade to DDR2 for faster processing). As mentioned above i had the changes done on Friday and reinstalled the OS (XP Pro). Now after doing all this i expected that i would have no problems for sometime at least, but the moment i started converting Video using TMPGEnc,(I tried with a couple of other software's like IMTOO and DVDFab, and same result) the same problems started all over again. It would process the video for about 50 minutes and then abruptly shutdown. It's starting to get more and more frustrating as i spend 1 hour or more for the video to process and then ..boom.. all the work is lost. I've set the CPU usage to 100% including overclock and still the same problem. to add to that the OS takes about 4 minutes (or more) to load on startup and i know it should not take as long... so i'm worried that a faulty OS installation might be the problem.. would appreciate it if you could help me out.
Thanks,
Linden
ANSWER: Hi Linden
Assuming that you've checked for overheating and have updated drivers, there are still a few things to look in to. What size hard drive is it, and is it the same one from the old system? Also, you may want to try a dedicated graphics card, rather than the onboard processor. Converting video is a very intensive task. Onboard is great for web surfing and playing older games, but not for any type of video processing. Let me know your thoughts on these suggestions.
Brian
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: Hello Brian,
First, thank you for your time. Much appreciated.
Onto the Hard Disc question now. I have 2 IDE hard discs of 80 GB and 250 GB. Post asking you the question, i decided to do some investigating myself, and this is what i have found.
i removed the 250 GB and reformatted the 80GB, doing a complete reinstall of the OS (there was considerable lag initially). once that was done i replaced the fan (not my own) with another one and it worked fine, completing the encoding process within 35 minutes. So now my question would be... is it something to do with the HD(the 250 GB) or is it the Fan. There was considerable heat generated with the old fan... but the old Fan works well.. it does not stop or anything.... so the confusion is still there... also when the encoding programme was installed, it was the only programme on the disc other than the operating system. could driver conflicts also be the cause?
After the above was done i replaced the fan(after cleaning it throughly) and the 250 GB HD and ran the programme again.. and we were back to square 1.. again...
to answer the question about the onboard graphics card.. on my previous motherboard i had no graphics card and the converting process worked fine.. till the above problems cropped up.
I know i am rambling... and i thank you for your time. Appreciate all the help you've given so far.
Regards,
Linden
ANSWER: Hi Linden
I will offer you some thoughts based on what you have told me. First, I'm not sure which fan you are referring to. Is it the case fan or CPU fan? I will assume you are talking about the CPU fan. This is the area I would concentrate on. Did you replace the entire heatsink and fan, or just the fan? Are you using stock cooling, or do you have a third party cooling solution? You mentioned in your previous post something about overclocking. Until you are running stable with the video conversions, I would definitely stop overclocking. Try using a CPU temperature monitor. The most useful one is the free Speedfan:
Make sure you are in the recommended temperature range for your CPU at idle, and at full load, such as during the video conversion. If not, you will need to improve your cooling. The Speedfan program will even monitor S.M.A.R.T. HDDs in case the problem is related to one of your hard drives.
Finally, simply because onboard graphics have worked for you in the past, that's no reason not to consider a separate card to take the load off the CPU and place it on the GPU. Trust me, your applications will run faster and smoother with a card, and your CPU will run cooler. Those are my thoughts, so let me know what you come up with using Speedfan.
Brian
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: Hello Brian,
Thanks for your inputs. On looking into problem as a heating issue we finally managed to solve it. Apparently the problem was with the stock cooling fan for the CPU. The fan's thermal paste had worn out which in turn did not allow the fan to dissipate heat fast enough. Replaced the fan with a new one and everything works like a dream. About the overclocking.. i have had the settings reset to default.
on a seperate note, you did mention a seperate graphics card. My question on that is..
1. is there a difference between the onboard graphics which comes as default (64 mb i think) to the one that i am using (Nvidia GeForce 7050 with 256mb shared memory). This came with the motherboard as onboard graphics.
2. will i have to get another graphics card?
I assure you that this will be the last question. :)
Once again, thank you for your time and patience. It is very much appreciated.
Regards,
Linden
Answer Hi Linden
I'm glad you got it sorted out. Not having enough thermal paste reduces the contact points between the CPU and the heat sink, causing the overheating which you experienced. At least that was an inexpensive fix!
The onboard graphics are good for integrated VGA, but you will get better performance with a dedicated card. Is it necessary? That depends on your gaming and video usage. Try borrowing a friends card to see if there is a noticeable difference.
