Help...Please!!! My PC just turns off randomly during transcoding.

I'm having some trouble with my computer just turning off during the transcoding process. I'm just trying to rip some avi's and mpg's to DVD and it happens at some random point though the process. I've tried different avi's and different transcoding programs as well. I saw a post about this in the NVE forum and figured it was just software related, so I downloaded TMPGEnc Plus and had the same issue. I suppose now i'm looking at codec compatibility problem? How can i troublshoot this? I get no error logs in Nero VE. It just turns off! This is super fustrating, if anyone out there coule PLEASE help a brother out, i'd be forever indebted.

BTW, the pc is a standard custom built:
P4 2.8Ghz
1GB RAM
ASUS Mainboard
ATI Radeon Video card
ATI All-in-Wonder capture card
M-Audio Delta sound card
Sony DVD RW
WinXP Professional

Thanks,
GeOKid

 

Have you checked your CPU Temperature while encodeing or when your PC Crashes???

Because Encodeing is a Very CPU Intensive activity which can Dramiticly Increase the Temp of your CPU and when it gets too hot the PC will Just Shut down or Reboot, Many Poeple in the Past have Posted the same symptoms and they all Had the Same Problem with the CPU Temp.....

Have you opened up your PC in say the Last 6 Months and Cleaned it out?? Because over Time the Fan and Heatsink on your CPU will Collect a Lot of Dust which reduces the air flow and the efficientcy of the Cooler...I have ven Had to Repair PC"s that Fried because they hadn"t been cleaned out in a Long time.....

I suggest that you open up your PC and Clean out all of the Dust especially on the CPU Fan and Heatsink and Leave the Door off of the PC and Start it up and Try encodeing again and see if it lasts longer without Shutting down and if it does then you Know what the Problem is...If it does Help but it still eventually stuts down I then would suggest that you Get a New CPU Cooler and also check your Bios settings to make sure that the Shutdown temperature is not set too low..(65c is Good)....

Good Luck

 

Thanks for your help Minion! I'll check into that, but I'm not convinced that is the problem. My case is a rather large 5U rackmount case with a fan right over the board. I also just found that I can successfully transcode a store-bought DVD through CloneDVD every time without a hitch. That doesn't help with my avi's, but the resources required are the same and my PC doens't crash. I'll double check the temp, but are there any other ideas out there? Thanks.

-=GeO=-

 

Are your avis downloaded?

 

Yeah. The avi's and mpg's are downloaded. They play fine in my media players also.

 

Downloaded videos often contain errors which might not be noticeable upon viewing, but might affect encoding. You may first check for and correct any errors with e.g. AviFixed or VCDGear, then try encode again with a more flexible program (e.g. VSO, DVDSanta). But be sure to back up the original video files first, 'cos the programs might backfire:

1) AviFixed (for avis):
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/AVIFixed.htm

2)VCDGear (for mpegs, set 'extraction/conversion' to 'mpeg --> mpeg', and check 'fix mpeg errors'):
http://www.vcdgear.com/

3) VSO DivxToDvd (freeware version):
http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/video_encoders/vso_divxtodvd_free.cfm

This is not to say that the problem is not heat related, but it's still worth a try.

Good luck!

 

Great tip, thanks! I'll check into that also. I've seen these subtle encoding errors that can stop things in their tracks. I'll give these other progs a try. Thanks again for the help, and i'll let you know what happens.

-GeOKid-