Why, Why, Why is this happening?

Jeremy Davidson · September 27th, 2005, 12:39 PM

Not to get off the failing-drive track, but have you installed any new drivers or run any Windows Updates recently? Maybe a driver is acting up and making the system freak out. What about changes to system properties (Speedstep, power saver, new hardware, etc.)? Battery vs. AC? 'Just fishing for other possibilities.

I've encountered the bad memory stick problem on another laptop. 'Turned out the slot itself was a little flaky. Check to see how much memory the computer reports each time you start it up. If it only shows 256MB (which would indicate only one working stick on your setup), you may have a memory problem. Try running MemTest for several hours to see if it turns up anything.

http://www.memtest.org/

Christopher, thanks for the link to the SMART utility. I plan to check that out for my desktop PC.

George Ellis · September 27th, 2005, 04:45 PM

James, Go back to Event Viewer. Open System (I assume the errors are there) and then click Action, Save Log File As.... Save the file (giving it a name) and put it on a web or ftp page. PRIVATE MAIL me where it is, and I will look at it. Just in case, I am at gsellis at charter dot net. If it is smaller than 1MB, you can attach it.

Christopher Lefchik · September 28th, 2005, 11:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeremy Davidson

Christopher, thanks for the link to the SMART utility. I plan to check that out for my desktop PC.

You're welcome!

James Emory · October 4th, 2005, 12:10 PM

Last week, I installed two new OEM 512 MB sticks of RAM and none of the symptoms have changed. So, I'm thinking that it's my hard drive or my processor but am leaning more towards the drive. I also just learned that there are 7200K rpm drives under $200 available for my laptop! My only concern about that is a possibly larger power requirement for a faster drive. Is this the case?

James Emory · October 4th, 2005, 02:39 PM

I got a new PCMCIA card last week and it came with a basic version of ULEAD VideoStudio 8 SE software. I just loaded it to see if would capture without losing frames and it was the same issue. It plays fine, smooth and normal, in the preview window but when I hit capture it starts stuttering and skipping. This is driving me crazy!!

James Emory · October 4th, 2005, 04:16 PM

Here are some of the errors that I found in my event reports after doing what George said. I felt like I was looking at a bowl of Lucky Charms: white captions, red x's, yellow triangles.......

Event Reports

Application Log

The vast majority of the listings are captions with a blue - i - inside of
them. Most of the other errors with red Xs are - application hang - and
some occur in clusters. Others that are much few red Xs are -application
errors-. Then there are quite a few, not as many as red Xs though, with
yellow triangles (with exclamations) that say -event system-

Red Xs are - application hang -

Yellow triangles (with exclamations) that say - event system -

____________________________

Quite a few of each, x's and triangles, but mostly - i - captions

System Log
Plenty of captions with a blue - i - inside of them

Red X - DCOM -
Red X - Service Control Manager -
Red X - W32Time -
Red X - ntfs -
Red X - atapi -
Red X - Server -
Red X - acpiec -
Red X - pcmcia -
____________________________

Yellow triangle - MrxSmb -
Yellow triangle - Server -
Yellow triangle - E100b -
Yellow triangle - Dhcp -
Yellow triangle - W32Time -
Yellow triangle - acpiec -
Yellow triangle - ftdisk -
Yellow triangle - disk -

Note: I'm quite sure that the - disk - warnings are from when I was having USB flash drive issues that occurred at the dates of the logged events. The disk warnings also coincide with the pcmcia errors with both of these issues being associated with an imcompatible PCMCIA card.

Related Thread
www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=51341

George Odell · October 5th, 2005, 08:24 AM

From the "for what it's worth" files, I would take a look at your display driver and play with the screen res settings. Issues with display drivers account for most system hangs, dropped frames and multimedia software issues from my past experience.

For instance, my Dell Optiplex G150 must be set to "256 colors" in order for me to capture DV. Then, after, the capture I just set it back.

Barring this, I'd just reformat with a new drive and reinstall the OS. Been there, down that. Takes time but well worth the effort.

George

James Emory · November 1st, 2005, 11:59 AM

Well, after this one and the issue below, I have been successfully capturing video to an external drive. I still cannot capture to the internal drive without dropping frames.

Relative Thread
www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=53027

September 27th, 2005, 12:39 PM	#16
Jeremy Davidson Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Eau Claire, WI Posts: 167	Not to get off the failing-drive track, but have you installed any new drivers or run any Windows Updates recently? Maybe a driver is acting up and making the system freak out. What about changes to system properties (Speedstep, power saver, new hardware, etc.)? Battery vs. AC? 'Just fishing for other possibilities. I've encountered the bad memory stick problem on another laptop. 'Turned out the slot itself was a little flaky. Check to see how much memory the computer reports each time you start it up. If it only shows 256MB (which would indicate only one working stick on your setup), you may have a memory problem. Try running MemTest for several hours to see if it turns up anything. http://www.memtest.org/ Christopher, thanks for the link to the SMART utility. I plan to check that out for my desktop PC. __________________ There's no way for you to know if what I'm saying is true unless you know what the truth is, and there's no way for you to know what the truth is unless there is a truth that you can know. -- Frank Peretti

October 4th, 2005, 12:10 PM	#19
James Emory Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Atlanta, Georgia Posts: 1,892	1 gig of RAM installed Last week, I installed two new OEM 512 MB sticks of RAM and none of the symptoms have changed. So, I'm thinking that it's my hard drive or my processor but am leaning more towards the drive. I also just learned that there are 7200K rpm drives under $200 available for my laptop! My only concern about that is a possibly larger power requirement for a faster drive. Is this the case?

October 4th, 2005, 04:16 PM	#21
James Emory Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Atlanta, Georgia Posts: 1,892	Error Log Reports Here are some of the errors that I found in my event reports after doing what George said. I felt like I was looking at a bowl of Lucky Charms: white captions, red x's, yellow triangles....... Event Reports Application Log The vast majority of the listings are captions with a blue - i - inside of them. Most of the other errors with red Xs are - application hang - and some occur in clusters. Others that are much few red Xs are -application errors-. Then there are quite a few, not as many as red Xs though, with yellow triangles (with exclamations) that say -event system- Red Xs are - application hang - Yellow triangles (with exclamations) that say - event system - ____________________________ Quite a few of each, x's and triangles, but mostly - i - captions System Log Plenty of captions with a blue - i - inside of them Red X - DCOM - Red X - Service Control Manager - Red X - W32Time - Red X - ntfs - Red X - atapi - Red X - Server - Red X - acpiec - Red X - pcmcia - ____________________________ Yellow triangle - MrxSmb - Yellow triangle - Server - Yellow triangle - E100b - Yellow triangle - Dhcp - Yellow triangle - W32Time - Yellow triangle - acpiec - Yellow triangle - ftdisk - Yellow triangle - disk - Note: I'm quite sure that the - disk - warnings are from when I was having USB flash drive issues that occurred at the dates of the logged events. The disk warnings also coincide with the pcmcia errors with both of these issues being associated with an imcompatible PCMCIA card. Related Thread www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=51341

October 5th, 2005, 08:24 AM	#22
George Odell Major Player Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 270	From the "for what it's worth" files, I would take a look at your display driver and play with the screen res settings. Issues with display drivers account for most system hangs, dropped frames and multimedia software issues from my past experience. For instance, my Dell Optiplex G150 must be set to "256 colors" in order for me to capture DV. Then, after, the capture I just set it back. Barring this, I'd just reformat with a new drive and reinstall the OS. Been there, down that. Takes time but well worth the effort. George __________________ "the difference between an amateur photographer and a professional is the amateur shows you all his pictures"

September 27th, 2005, 04:45 PM	#17
George Ellis Trustee Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Suwanee, GA Posts: 1,241	James, Go back to Event Viewer. Open System (I assume the errors are there) and then click Action, Save Log File As.... Save the file (giving it a name) and put it on a web or ftp page. PRIVATE MAIL me where it is, and I will look at it. Just in case, I am at gsellis at charter dot net. If it is smaller than 1MB, you can attach it.

October 4th, 2005, 02:39 PM	#20
James Emory Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Atlanta, Georgia Posts: 1,892	I got a new PCMCIA card last week and it came with a basic version of ULEAD VideoStudio 8 SE software. I just loaded it to see if would capture without losing frames and it was the same issue. It plays fine, smooth and normal, in the preview window but when I hit capture it starts stuttering and skipping. This is driving me crazy!!

November 1st, 2005, 11:59 AM	#23
James Emory Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Atlanta, Georgia Posts: 1,892	Well, after this one and the issue below, I have been successfully capturing video to an external drive. I still cannot capture to the internal drive without dropping frames. Relative Thread www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=53027