Crash on MPEG Export

[Paul Budline]

A problem that is bad and seems to be getting worse - exporting to MPEG2, MP4, or M2V (DVD) always leads to a crash and the dreaded blue screen. Exporting to other formats is generally okay, but being able to use the above three is extremely important. The crash occurs whether using direct "export" or "queue" ... on CBR, VBR, one-pass, two-pass, with or without "use previews," with or without "use maximum render quality." It sometimes happens deep into the export, at other times just as the export is beginning. I have monitored the core temps during export and they seem reasonable, rarely getting above 70 C. In this case I am exporting standard definition, but the same thing happens with HDV.

Premiere Pro 6.0.3, Media Encoder 6.0.3.1, Windows 7 Professional 64-bit with Service Pack 1, 16 GB RAM, Intel Core i7-3930K 3.20GHz, overclocked (I believe.) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 with a recently-updated driver (this also occurred with the previous driver) The system was assembled by a very smart computer guy; unfortunately, he is not an Adobe expert and is a couple of hours away. His initial thoughts were temperature, but that seems to not be an issue.

I would re-install Media Encoder, but it seems an embedded part of Premiere Pro CS6. And I'll certainly re-install PP if that might help, or perhaps can revert to an earlier version of Media Encoder. Before going to those steps, I wonder whether anyone else has run into a similar issues and might have a suggestion. Thanks very much.

Paul

[Harm Millaard]

Paul,

BSOD means a hardware problem. It could be temperature, like your friend mentioned, although 70° C is not extremely high. It is higher than the 58° C is have on my overclocked @ 4.7 GHz i7-3930K under heavy load, but it should not cause a BSOD. Other things to investigate as well are the PSU and the memory.

[Paul Budline]

Either my computer maker is a genius or I've been getting very lucky. He had me go into BIOS and turn up one voltage parameter by some small amount ... encoding has gone very smoothly since then. Definitely hardware. Thanks for the help, which I may need again.

[Harm Millaard]

Paul,

Can you confirm this was a simple matter of increasing the CPU VCORE Voltage a bit? To what Voltage is it set now and what is your multiplier and BCLK set to? It is all related to the overclock settings you use currently.

If so, then ask your friend to have a closer look at your cooling setup, you may need some more fans, better CPU cooler or better cooling paste, because I already indicated that while 70° C is not really worrisome, it will go up even more with an increased VCORE voltage.

[Paul Budline]

Thank you, Harm,

It may be too early to give a definitive answer, but so far three exports have gone smoothly. I do not have access to the BIOS at the moment, but I believe he upped it from 1.25 to 1.375. Does that make sense to you?

I also gave the computer its annual dust-out after that, and I'll be keeping an eye on the CPU temperatures during future encodes. He mentioned cooling paste as well, but it's not something I'm willing to do without his on-site help. Right now CPUs are in the mid- to upper-40's but I am only doing some digitizing.

Thank you again, and i will let you know if this is a genuine solution or merely some temporary good luck.

Paul

[Harm Millaard]

Paul,

Going from 1.25V to 1.375V is a huge difference. Clearly 1.25V is pretty low for an overclocked system (depending on the multiplier and BCLK settings) but upping that to 1.375V is huge.

In my case, with the same CPU, using a multiplier of 46 and a BCLK of 102.3 resulting in slightly over 4.7 GHz, I use a CPU VCORE voltage of 1.340V. That gives me an idle temperature of the CPU of around 33° C and under heavy load of around 58° C and under Prime 95 stress testing around 67° C after one hour of testing with ambient temperature of 21° C. Note that my GTX 680 is also overclocked from 192 GB/s bandwidth to 226.8 GB/s, so that adds some heat to the system, although the GPU runs at around 34° C idle and around 59° C during stress testing. Additionally my 64 GB memory runs at 2182.

[Paul Budline]

I am afraid I don't speak that language, and I don't mean Dutch. My knowledge of BIOS and inner workings is limited, to be generous. However, I did check the BIOS and the voltage is actually 1.35, not 1.375. I still haven't done another MPEG export to see if my problem is solved.

Thanks again, and please let me know if that 1.35 is still excessive.

Paul

[Harm Millaard]

Paul,

You just hit on one of my many short-comings.

Men have many faults, women only two, everything they say and everything they do.

I often just assume people understand my geek speak, sorry for that...

1.35V is on the safe side. It may be a tiny bit more than I would like, but your computer friend made a wise decision from the distance. Don't worry about it. When your friend is around, he can have a closer look, but for the time being, don't worry.

[Paul Budline]

Two more long exports that went fine. Core temps did reach into the 80's during those exports to MP4; the highest I noticed was 85.

Thank you again

[Harm Millaard]

Paul,

You have a cooling problem. 85° C during PR load is just very high. It will not destroy your system, but it will shorten its life-span. Your friend better do something about the cooling situation. From this distance and without seeing your system, I can't give you more than this, but you ought to do something about the cooling situation shortly.

[Paul Budline]

Encoding again and all six cores are in the 70's, occasionally touching 81. I lowered the room temp quite a bit - never realized how much ambient temperature could affect the processor.

Thanks