Posted by Bill's News on 11/19/06 00:45

paulg7083 wrote:
> Has anyone experienced problems with conflicting codecs? Is
> this
> possible?
>
> I have had my PC (Athlon 64 3800+ with Asus MB) for about 4
> months and
> have loaded up various video editing/DVD authoring packages
> (Pinnacle
> Studio, Womble, Nero 7.xx, WinAVi etc) and the Storm Codec
> pack.
>
> I have had problems as follows:
>
> 1) In Windows Explorer, when you right click on any video file
> the
> screen blanks for a couple of seconds and then comes back
> again.
> 2) When I change Windows accounts the screen goes blank before
> logging
> into the other account.
> 3) The PC suddenly powers off - totally. This has happened
> usually
> when it is not being used - I have been in the room when it
> happens,
> there is no warning, it just powers off.
>
> Event log shows nothing - anyone know something better that
> can log
> all sorts of info about the PC.
>
> I have had the PC back to the store where I bought it and
> their tests
> could find no problems, but I did make them replace the power
> supply.
> The tech suggested I might have conflicting drivers (are
> codecs
> drivers of a sort, since you can view them in device manager).
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Paul

I've recently bought a 2g AMD 64x2 3800 - 1 gig - from DELL
(call me irresponsible;-0)
I also use a Hauppauge USB2 WinTV2k v3.0.

Here is a smattering of the problems I've had, none of which I
now attribute to the capture card nor its software.

My first ever non-Intel CPU.

Day one problem:

Periodically the sound stops. Most apps ignore the error and
proceed soundlessly. Control panel, sounds & audio devices,
sounds tab, asterisk > (play sound) reports an error (sorry,
failed to write it down). Reboot restores sound.

Subsequent problems:

Over the two days following setup, I installed the apps which
were running problem free on this PC's predecessor (a 2gp4-512,
multi drive) and are still running on a Toshiba P35 laptop
(3.2gp4d-512 - 80g hdd)

The video capture program, WinTV2K, display panel (Hauppauge
USB2 capture device) picture freezes, while the application
continues otherwise unaffected to capture correctly to a file.
Obviously not a major problem, simply disconcerting.

The USB2 modem (Creative DE5671-1) not previously used, and
operated by Call Station v3.10 (the same software run on the
2gp4 with internal modem) frequently fails to catch the caller
ID.

An external DVD burner (NEC 3550) needs to be plugged in,
unplugged, and plugged in again - sometimes repeatedly - before
recognized by the system. Power on while plugged in, or reboot
while powered on and plugged in, are insufficient to recognize
the unit. The extra unplug/replug is always required.

Periodically the system performance drops drastically (typical
apps here are TV capture, editing out of commercials, conversion
from MPEG2 to MPEG4, burning as-is to DVD+RW data discs). A two
pass conversion is typically done at 100 fps during the first
pass and 35 fps during the second pass. When I notice the
performance operating at half or less those frame rates, I abort
the process. Windows task manager shows 60% +/- 10% dual CPU
usage before the abort. After the abort, one processor drops to
2% or so, while the other continues to fluctuate around 60%
though no processes are reported as consuming more than 2% and
sys-idle is at ~98%. A reboot causes the system to hang at
"Windows is shutting down" every time. Power off, wait, on
again is the only cure.

Two +RW discs, burned on the internal drive by Nero 6.6.0.12
were not only unreadable, they could not be erased - as the
drive never relinquishes control back to the software after
these burned disks are inserted. Other discs, +RW, +R, and -R
have burned properly - though I tend to use the NEC 3550 in fear
of a repetition. I did not think to check whether this ghost
CPU usage occurred during the burns, as I was unaware of the
problem until the burn verify step hung. Afterward is when I
found the discs inaccessible.

Interestingly all discs burn faster than they verify?

Three video discs copied from the internal drive to HDD had
severe drop outs when played. The same discs, when read from
the external NEC 3550 had none. These discs had been recorded
months earlier on the replaced PC. I now only restore video
from and record video to the NEC drive.

I've recently added a USB2 hub (7:1), after which I was able to
add my HP 840C DeskJet. While this works properly most times,
the printer is sometimes not recognized (similar to the 3550)
until a second power down, power up. It is seldom initiated
from the power down state by Word - which it never failed to do
on the 2gp4 nor the laptop.

I've loaded the DELL support app, run check now, and the first
thing it tells me is that a system check point has not been
taken for more that 30 days. Opening the system restore
manager, I find that a restore point exists for every day but
one of the past 15 days. Needless to say, I find no reason to
run, nor rely on, this DELL program.

The 2gp4-512 I replaced with this DELL unit was purchased in
2000 and has been powered down but 4 times in the six years for
hardware mods, and rebooted only when installing new software.
The DELL DIMC521 has to be rebooted several times a day just to
recover form the above issues.

I've delayed writing to DELL because it's not crystal clear
wherein the faults lie. However, since all these apps run
without incident on other PCs, I can only conclude it is this PC
creating the situation.

Note to the OP: This is not my first DELL, though first in a
while, and I've bought several non-AMD DELLs for others which
have run fine. I also have a Toshiba P35 laptop, which is the
Intel 3.2 GHz mobility version of the AMD dual core chip. Only
this AMD system exhibits problems with the same apps running on
Intel systems. Still, I can not pin point the source of these
problems and am reluctant to point more than one finger in that
direction.

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