My computer keeps crashing everytime I try and encode to an avi file using the Divx codec. I was backing up some dvd's. I want to store them as a library on my pc and feed out to my tv with my video card.I was using GordianKnot. Well, I got about 4 of them done using Xvid. Then I tried experimenting and do one in Divx. At first it came out really good, but somehow I got a french dub. So I tried it again with a different audio track. Now I can't get through it without a crash (my monitor goes black and I have to hit "reset"). I tried other movies too. It just keeps crashing. Does anyone know what causes this? Anyone else have this problem too? Does Divx maybe have issues with AMD processors(AMD Athlon XP 2700+)? My whole system is all pretty new. I'm surprised it can't handle this. Here's some specs: 1 gig ddr 400mhz dual channel ram nvidia gforce fx 5700le 256mb video card nvidia nforce2 ultra 400 chipset
No, my hd still has over 50G's left on it. I followed GordianKnot's (a DVD to Avi program) help link and they said there that it's most certainly my hardware. Like my ram or cpu. I built the system myself, so I don't know, I guess different brands, or something, don't always play nice together. The link also said that there's nothing more intensive on a cpu than video encoding. So what I did is set my cpu clock speed down some from the default setting. I'm not sure if that actually helped, but I haven't had anymore crashes, although I havn't yet tried the Divx codec. The problem started the last time I tried that. So I've stuck with Xvid, and completely left my PC alone while encoding. So far so good.
Hi Frank, Forget the DivX; I would stick with the XviD codec :^) Setting up the XviD encoder, under Advanced Options, Motion: Set Motion Search Precision = 6 - Ultra High Set VHQ Mode = 4 - Wide Search Use Chroma Motion Set maximum I-Frame interval to 10x your framerate (ie. 240 for progressive DVD) Under Quantization: Use Trellis quantization Re: your PC Your CPU runs 166FSB (333DDR) Set your memory to run synchronously with FSB ie. 333 (PC2700 speed). This is more important in dual-channel mode! At PC2700 speed your RAM will support more aggressive timings, but what we are after is dual-channel mode stability without the asynchronous operation. Setup your memory in BIOS to run 5:5 ratio with CPU (333MHz) with SPD memory settings. This is the most stable configuration for a 166FSB CPU rig. Once you confirm stability, you can then diddle with the memory timings if you wish (my ABit has Presets called 'SPD' 'Optimal' 'Aggressive' 'Turbo' and then 'Expert' which is the manual user-define option). It is better to run your memory tight at 333 than loose at 400, since you have a 333 CPU ;^) Synchronize your RAM and you will never need to underclock your FSB, because think about it - you are only increasing the disparity between FSB and RAM. Ensure good cooling, and try this maximum-stability setup. Ideally, pickup a small HD and rip from one HD to another (some speed gains, and much easier on the poor HDs :^) Perfect BIOS setup is critical to the overall performance and stability of your rig. Let us know if this helps... Regards
Your recommendations for xvid config are working good. I'm getting better quality now. Thank you. Synchronizing my fsb and ram makes sense. Thanks for telling me. I didn't understand before in my BIOS set-up why it was automatically set to 166MHZ clock speed when I knew my processor was 333fsb. So 333DDR is the same thing. That makes it a little less confusing. I also never considered the ram I chose was different than the cpu, with the ram being PC3200 and the cpu fsb being PC2700. I just bought the highest and fastest ram my board would support. So there's a lag I have to account for then. "Setup your memory in BIOS to run 5:5 ratio with CPU (333MHz) with SPD memory settings" The only 5:5 ratio I could find in my set-up options was for the CPU ratio. I had problems trying this. I set the cpu ratio to 5:5 because that was the only 5:5 ratio I found but then the boot-up screen asked me to insert the system disk? It wasn't working. Then I couldn't boot at all when I changed the ratio with the ram. I set it so it's clock speed was 334mhz, which was the closest to 333mhz I could get with tinkering with the ratio in ram. I couldn't boot and had to remove my J8 jumper to reset my board. Then I tried the closest setting under 333MHZ. Same thing. Couldn't boot. Had to pull J8 again and reset. I don't understand what the ratios are. If I did, maybe I'd know better what I was doing. I understand about making these components run in sync. Very important point. I don't see yet how to manually do this yet, though. My BIOS is Pheonix-AwardBIOS v6.00PG. Do you know where I can get some expertise with this? I decided to try "nTune", an nVidia program I just found. It automatically set my systems BIOS settings to what it says is the best performance. My fsb is back up to 166MHZ (actually 167MHZ)and I havn't had any crashes since I used this. I'm getting encoding jobs done between 2-3 hours, with excellent quality (thanks to your Xvid recommendations). Still, nTune isn't a substitute for knowing how to set-up my own BIOS. Thank you for your help, Frank
Yes, your CPU runs 166FSB (333DDR). PC3200 RAM is good, you don't want to use PC2700 RAM, but ideally run the PC3200 RAM at PC2700 speed (333DDR) synchronized with your CPU. There are different procedures (in BIOS setup) to achieve this - you have not identified your motherboard to us so cannot help. The ratios are multipliers of 33MHz, which is the standard PCI slot frequency and has been carried forward from the early 90's when the standard was created (ie. 486-33MHz ran a 1:1 ratio). The first asynchronous operation was AMD Athlon 1000 (100FSB) and PC133 memory - 3:4 ratio. It was observed that the PC133 wasn't much faster than PC100 memory, or PC133 run at 100MHz speed (3:3 ratio, synchronous). Your situation is very similar but with modern numbers :^) My ABit mobo (on Auto memory speed setting) runs 200 (400DDR) memory with a 166 (333DDR) CPU. Because the CPU FSB is listed first, this ratio is 5:6. This works okay for most folks, but in dual-channel mode with generic PC3200 RAM the trick is to run the memory at 333DDR synchronously with the CPU, for stability. As has been observed previously, there is little or no performance penalty from this and stability can be greatly enhanced. Now, if your CPU runs 200FSB (400DDR) you have a bigger problem as things run synchronously 6:6 by default, and the solution for dual-channel instability is named 'Corsair', LoL ;^) So you can see Frank that, since your FSB is 333DDR and you have 400DDR memory, there is a stability solution for you that is not limited to only big-$$ memory... Tell me your mobo and I'll look up your ratios in your mobo manual. It is curious, the problems (requiring J8!) you have had, but we'll sort you out... L8R
My motherboard is a DFI NFII Ultra Infinity. Apparently nTune doesn't account for dual-channel ram. It has my DDR frequency at 200MHZ. So this is a 5:6 ratio then too? My CPU is running at 166MHZ. This sounds like your Abit set-up. It's weird: my BIOS has a place to select a CPU Ratio, but all the selections don't seem to me to be listed as ratios. I don't know what they are listed as. They read like X5, X5.5, X6, X6.5 etc up to 22. But the selections for DDR DRAM Clock do read like ratios: 2:1, 5:3, 3:2...etc. This is set on By SPD however, and there's no 5:5 option. This is what I said, is I changed the CPU Ratio to X5.5, and couldn't boot. It started to beep. What I did was I pulled the JP1 jumper, not the one I meant to. J8 resets my FSB. I pulled the CMOS. It stopped the beeping though, so whatever. So this is how BIOS is set now: CPU Ratio is set on Default. That's a 166MHZ clock frequency. DDR DRAM Clock is set on By SPD. DDR frequency is 200MHZ. So what I'm trying to do here for best stability is to adjust the DDR frequency to 166MHZ?
I have reviewed your motherboard manual from here: http://www.dfi.com.tw/Upload/Manual/nfiiuinfinity 75300332.pdf I must say I like my BIOS better than yours :^) There is no clear provision for setting memory speed to 333DDR instead of 400. You can run your memory @ 400DDR but only if stable! Your BIOS would seem to choke on my 'simple' solution... Since I cannot get my hands on it, I offer these suggestions: System Performance - Optimal CPU Interface - Optimal Memory Timings - Optimal Super Bypass - Disabled Sync Mode Memory Bypass - Auto? (there is no explanation what this is.) Data Scavenged Rate - Normal System BIOS Cacheable - Disabled Video RAM Cacheable - Disabled DDR DRAM Clock - By SPD DDR Frequency - 166MHz (but how do you set the ratio?) Like I say, if it wants to run the memory asynchronously @ 400DDR then let it - but you require stability. One way or another, the answers to your instability problems are within your BIOS setup... Hope this helps, L8R BTW Tom's Hardware apparently disallowed my 'link' to the beautiful Corsair memory picture ;^( The original photo was found here: http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20050509/cual_core_athlon-07.html#cl2225_dimms_by_corsair
Thank you very much for your trouble. Thanks for finding the motherboard book online for me. I didn't even know you could find them online. I have it because it came with my board, but now I'll save a backup to disk. You helped me understand some about how the cpu and ram work together in regard to speeds, which I'm glad to know now. Alright, I got the DRAM clock frequency now to operate at 166MHZ. I don't know if everything is synchronized now, but I selected the 1:1 ratio in the ram menu. That was the only setting that brought the frequency down to 166. No problems so far. Again, thanks for your help , Frank
Ahhh, 1:1 LoL :^) That makes sense since it is the same as 5:5 or 6:6 or whatever. Different manufacturers express the same ratio in different ways... Since one popular ratio setting (describing 166:200) is 5:6, I suppose reducing the memory speed to 166 (333DDR) would make sense to call it 5:5 - ABit has taken the position that calling this 1:1 would be more confusing than not, but whatever ;^) NOW you can run your RAM dual-channel. If nice & stable, you can then change your memory setting from Optimal to Aggressive. If still stable, maybe even Turbo! Generic (inexpensive) PC3200 RAM, relieved of its requirement to run at 200MHz (400DDR) will perform very well at 333DDR speed, although its performance @ 400MHz could be only marginal. 1:1 operation in dual channel offers 5.4GB/second memory bandwidth (2700MB/s x 2). While this does not sound as impressive as the 6.4GB/s touted in promotional materials, the reality is: 1) It's stable. Bandwidth is useless if it will not run :^) 2) It's synchronous. The latencies and instability involved in translation between 5:6 are avoided. 3) Your memory timings can be tightened up. CAS2 operation (or at least CAS2.5) can be achieved with inexpensive RAM that SPDs at CAS3 for 200MHz (400DDR) operation. Many people faced with your situation will choose to operate 1 stick of RAM @ 200MHz in single channel. You can see that our solution is better... L8R Frank
