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DVD Shrink is freezing my computer... Any Suggestions?
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mcfly982
Junior Member
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23. May 2004 @ 08:51 |
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DVD Shrink will open a disk just fine but sometimes, at different times of the backup process, it freezes my computer. I have tried dvd decrypter and put the movie on my hard dive but DVD Shrink still freezes during backup. The strange thing is that it only hapens sometimes and at random times. The same movie that froze my computer can backup just fine after 2 or 3 freezes. It's like a gamble each time. It's really a pain because I can't leave my computer to do its work and know that when I get back my disk will be backed up.
My system runs Windows 98SE with all current updates, 733MHz Pentium III, 512MB PC100 RAM. Thanks.
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mcfly982
Junior Member
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23. May 2004 @ 16:13 |
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Anyone have any ideas? It gets really frustrating.
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oneacer
Member
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23. May 2004 @ 16:44 |
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I would only be taking a guess here, but first of all how big is your hard drive and what do you have for open space on it? My first thought is that your system is not up to the task, possibly not enough space or the 733 p3 might not be fast enough. I have been using Shrink to rip and Decrypter to burn with no problems. I also am assuming you have nothing else running and all your anti-virus as well as auto updates are turned off while in a rip or burn process.
Specs:
Dell 8200 :
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Pentium 4 at 2.2 Ghz
512mb RDRAM
120GB Hard Drive w/data burst cache
Nvidia -GeForce3-Ti500
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
Altec Lansing ADA995?s
Lite-On DVD-ROM 16x (black model 166)
Phillips DVD+RW-D01 (burner)
Sony DVP-NS715P (stand alone player)
Sony DVP-NS325 (stand alone player)
CyberLink Power DVD (soft PC player)
21? Trinitron Monitor
Ritek +RW media (currently)
( have used Memorex, Verbatim, Leda, Sony, Optodisk, etc.)
Microsoft Sidewinder Joystick
Logitech Wingman Rumblepad
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mcfly982
Junior Member
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23. May 2004 @ 16:52 |
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My hard drive is 40G and is empty. The backup usually gets about 1/4 to 3/4 of the way and then freezes. I wish I could be more specific but it all happens so randomly... Sometimes it does it, sometimes it doesn't..Sometimes 1/4 of the way, sometimes at 1/2 of the way... Sometimes it works perfect for 3-4 movies, then it happens again. I exit all programs. I'm going to try to open it from my HD and backup in Safe Mode and see how that works.
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mcfly982
Junior Member
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24. May 2004 @ 08:41 |
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anyone else... Anyone know if it's is possible to upgrade my 733MHz Pentium 3 with a 1GHz pentium 3?
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raydoz
Newbie
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24. May 2004 @ 09:24 |
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hello mcfly982, if you want to upgrade your current CPU, from 733 to about 1ghz speed, you will have to look at your motherboard's manual to see if it can accept that type of CPU chip. If your motherboard can accept a 1ghz CPU, then you should be able to upgrade it.
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raydoz
Newbie
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24. May 2004 @ 09:26 |
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also mcfly982, try to make sure that no other programs are running at the same time when ever you are using DVD Shrink because they may be taking up computer resources which could be causing your computer to sometimes freeze.
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KoolAid7
Suspended due to non-functional email address
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24. May 2004 @ 09:38 |
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I have the same problem. My specs below
2.6 Ghz p4
1 Ghz RAM
80 MB HD...57 MB free
ATI Radeon 9600 Pro Vid Card (Lates dirvers)
Windows XP
I Use Decrypter . This usually decrypts just fine, however when DVD Shrink starts to encode, It freezes quite often and randomly. I have tried everything I know of and some things I dont know of. What seems to work the best is to pause the shrink porgram at every 5% during the encoding process and let it set for 60 seconds, then resume. This is 50% success rate, but still very frusterertating. Thasnx for any help
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KoolAid7
Suspended due to non-functional email address
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24. May 2004 @ 09:39 |
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oh yea. I use a lite on dvd rw.
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Moderator
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24. May 2004 @ 15:16 |
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It may be a heat related issue. Encoding is very CPU intensive and creates mucho heat which could explain the randomness of the shutdowns :)
My killer sig came courtesy of bb "El Jefe" mayo.
The Forum Rules You Agreed To! http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/2487
"And there we saw the giants, and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight" - Numbers 13:33 |
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ScubaPete
AfterDawn Addict
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24. May 2004 @ 16:19 |
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Yep, Yep, Bring Mr. Computer in out of the heat, poor baby is suffering from heatstroke, someone dial 911 -
"Pop" a good sized fan in that puppy and that "Cool Dog" will scamper again -
de Pete-ster
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 24. May 2004 @ 16:21
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KoolAid7
Suspended due to non-functional email address
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26. May 2004 @ 14:19 |
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That could very well be the proble, because there is no eror or conflicts given just..pfffft. Frozen solid. The pausing may help keep it cool. Thnx fellas, will monitor my temerature next time. Although I have an alarm set at 2.5C prior to shutdown temp. ????!?
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mcfly982
Junior Member
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26. May 2004 @ 17:07 |
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Well, here are the results of some tests for some that have the same problems. It does seem to be heat related.
I went ahead and upgraded my 733MHZ PIII to a 1GHz PIII, it was a direct swap operation. First thing I noticed when backing up the same video is that the 277MHz difference related to about 3000kb/s increase in DVD Shrink backup speed.
While backing up the video, I'm smiling and happy because it's backing up fast and there's one minute left to go with no freezing! Then all of a sudden, it freezes AGAIN! I was furious and I popped off my computer cover to test for heat and what do I see... I forgot to hook up the fan and the heat sink was quite hot.
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brobear
Suspended permanently
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26. May 2004 @ 18:20 |
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I think the baby should be thrown out with the wash. Too much seems to have gone wrong with the old unit for it too be reliable for the high requirements of video editing. Bigger is better here. 350 to 500 G hard drive (at least 200G), 2.5 G or better hard drive, 1 G RAM (512 K is worked like crazy)and preferrably at least an 800MHz front side bus. Most people don't realize the memory required for running the processes in the background of a computer. Speed is no good if you can't get out the door, and that is the comparison for the front side bus. Go for the innards instead of the accessories and save yourself a lot of grief.
I didn't hear you say if the computer locked up doing anything besides video editing. It's a dead giveaway if it only locks up when attempting that task. Older computers were just not set up to do video editing. They had enough trouble just trying to burn CDs. Just think of the difference in burning a 700 MB CD and a 4.7G DVD.
Old computers just don't have what it takes to do video editing. A 4O G hard drive just won't do. You have to have storage galore. Like at least 16 G minimum free. That leaves 24 for the software you have on the computer. Don't forget about the space for the temporary files for the editing. You're talking about working a small drive to death and then there is the issue of the buffer memory for the drive. Just think how often that little old drive will need to be defragged. Old small drives need defragging more than the new big ones. Need I go on... You can get a low price unit with a lot of power cheaper than making all the upgrades to get the unit to work properly.
And no, I am not a computer salesman.
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 29. May 2004 @ 11:36
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mcfly982
Junior Member
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26. May 2004 @ 19:35 |
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brobear;
Thanks for the info but I am not doing extensive video editing, I am just backing up some movies I own. To get my "old" computer up to the task of backing up dvds, so far I have spent $60 for 1GHz processor, $80 for my memory upgrade and $40 for 40G hard drive. I use the origional 20G hard drive for my main system files. That's a whole lot cheaper than a whole new system with a 350G-500G hard drive, 1G RAM and 800MHz front side bus. A DVD is about 4.6GB, why would you need 350G-500G to store that? My room mate's been using his 1GHZ Athlon based, 128MB RAM, 133MHz front side bus, 60G hard drive computer to back up his DVDs for a long time now (over 200 DVDs)without any problems whatsoever. My computer used to freeze with my 733MHz PIII, now that I have a 1GHz PIII, it works fine. If the requirements you listed were required for backing up a DVD, not too many people would be backing up anything.
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ScubaPete
AfterDawn Addict
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26. May 2004 @ 20:25 |
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Quote:
... I forgot to hook up the fan and the heat sink was quite hot
.
(Dummy ! Reminds me of the time I rebuilt an entire 323 HP Chevy engine and went out for a run - everything was going swell until the engine sizzed-up, I forgot to tighten down the oil pump - Not a good night was that :--(
Yea, Right there guys, What blooming idiot would have 500 Gig of HD, over 2.5 Gig of processor, AND 1 Gig of RAM ? ?
Must be some crazed, demented, 6 french-fries short of a McDonald's Happy Meal, certifiable lunatic.
That must be a total Wack - - Uuuhh - - A freaked- out, Single-digit I.Q'd aaaahhh, oooppps - -
Yea, (looking around everywhere) Where's the bloody door, - - -
I wasn't thinkin about de ScubaPete - - -
(hoping there wasn't anyone here who knows me - - )
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 26. May 2004 @ 20:31
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mcfly982
Junior Member
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26. May 2004 @ 20:33 |
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ScubaPete, your system is killer. I wouldn't mind having all that good stuff. I'm just saying, a simple user like myself doesn't need that kind of hardware to burn a few DVDs. I store 3 movies at most at one time on my HD, then I delete them. Just to show how simple user I am... My C drive has a capacity of 16.3 GB and I'm using only 1.78 for ALL my programs. So, 14.5G + 40G is what I have for movie/music storage. It took 5 years for me to get from 733MHz to 1GHz, I'm getting there. 2.8GHz is right around the corner... :)
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 26. May 2004 @ 20:36
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ScubaPete
AfterDawn Addict
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26. May 2004 @ 20:48 |
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No matter what -
When you burn a disc, your PC is working it's butt off, treat it nice -
lol
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brobear
Suspended permanently
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27. May 2004 @ 01:40 |
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Pete is the man. Go Pete. 8~) That computer doesn't know if you're a Newbie or a Pro like Pete. And boy isn't it nicer to drive a Rolls like Pete than to try to get somewhere in a brokedown Studebaker.
Still sounds like the crash was caused by too much demand on the system. You never said whether or not it locked up doing normal tasks like word processing and the quicker CPU seemed to fix it. You chose to get into one of the most CPU intensive tasks known to PCs, video editing (backing up a home DVD to you Newbies). More square pegs and round holes... At the rate you're going you'll be up to 2.5 GHz by the next millenium. Wonder what the folks will be using then.
For the $180 you sunk in the old computer, you could have added just $290 and got a new P4 with better hardware than you have (with a 2 GHz CPU), and it would have been new with a one year warrantee an tech assistance. Go figure. Then you didn't mention how much your burner cost or the amount you plan to spend for the coasters you burn, ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching. And how about that overheated (probably degraded) cpu you may have to replace again in the near future?
I had an old Chevy once. When you fired it up the oil smoke would kill every mosquito in the county. I could travel in it. But it was more work than go. Old car - old computer. They share the same demise.
Sounds like someone didn't do their homework and doesn't want to listen. The bare minimum for a PC with a simple one-button copy program is 10 Gigabytes free space with a min speed of 5400 rpm. (An ata 100 at 7200 rpm with 80 GB storage is the entry computer drive today.)
Read minimum as the salesperson selling you something that is going to work with minimum success. Old movies of normal duration run from 4 to 5GB. The newer dual level discs are at near 8. Put 3 movies on that little drive and watch that puppy slow down. Add to that your 2 mini-drive configuration is a guaranteed bottleneck for data transfer. Lets just say you and your friend are lucky and most of your problems will be memory and storage related.
Your minimal CPU and memory upgrade got you above the threshold. Don't complain when you have minimum quality success with the copying. Nuff said..
Good luck and happy burning.
Late breaking info:
Here is some pure tech advice and a no cost help for your system as is. You said you had your main files on the small 20 GB hard drive and use the 40 GB for the storage. You should have the 40 GB drive as the main one with the programing and use the 20 for storage. Reason being the CPU has to communicate with the separate drives. Simply put, the 40 GB will give you a bigger working space and quicker access to data by the CPU. If you don't believe me ask Pete.
Happy Trails
_
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 29. May 2004 @ 11:38
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mcfly982
Junior Member
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27. May 2004 @ 06:09 |
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Once again, thanks for the advice. It only started doing this with DVD-Shrink while backing up and it only did it every now and then as the first post stated. I never had a problem burning the actual disks. Since I started, I've burned about 3 coasters out of about 50 and that's because I didn't use caps for the file name. I don't think that's too bad. I don't see a need to spend an extra $300 when my current system works just fine. I am on a limited budget as I spend almost $2k a month on school and I don't have a job.
oneacer, ScubaPete, and Raydoz, thanks for the useful info about the speed and heat. It fixed the problem.
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Denzien
Member
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27. May 2004 @ 06:29 |
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HDD drives can be read by a CPU equally if you use SMART and RAID.
BTW - I suggest everyone who has SMART compatible HDDs go into their BIOS and turn it on if they have that feature - it greatly improves stability with stuff like this.
And make sure your HDDs are formatted for NTFS if you can. Sometimes a FAT32 formatted drive will conflict with these DVD programs and their file structures.
Athlon 64 3200+
1GB PC3200 DDR-RAM
Sony DRU-700A Double Layer Burner
ATI Radeon X800XL PCIe 16X 128MB
Windows XP Home
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 27. May 2004 @ 06:32
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brobear
Suspended permanently
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27. May 2004 @ 07:31 |
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One Barrel or Two
Denzien,
As SMART entails issues with older setups, it is usually turned off not on. I'll put the technical articles at the bottom so you can see what I'm talking about.
The thread addressed upgrading an older unit to do the job. Your suggestion would be more appropriate for someone able to spend some bucks. Our friend here is on a budget and doesn't want to go that route. Been there and know the issues.
Most of the older CPU-motherboard systems were topped out at about 512K RAM. Also there was a 137 Gigabyte hard drive barrier. RAID definitely isn't an option for an older computer with small drives. RAID is more appropriate for servers and big mean computers like Pete's. The older computers aren't set up to operate the newer OS. And then there is the BIOS on the board. Then you get into addressing to the hard drive. Think 24 as opposed to 48-bit addressing with the newer OS and BIOS setups. This all boils down to the 137 Gigabyte barrier for older systems. Now haven't we all set down and read the tech guides so we can enjoy this entertaining info?
By the time one efficiently followed your suggestion, they would have a new computer in an old case. When you speak of RAID and upgrading, you're involving late tech and late issue hard drives, chipsets, processors, and motherboards, just to name a little.
And to think, we started out to cure a heat and system limitation problem.
Glad you're over the threshold and happy burning mcfly.
Here are the tech tips I mentioned. The first is a RAID 0 setup and then SMART - Happy Reading
How to create a RAID 0 (stripped) array using the SATA RAID controller and two SATA drives.
Question
How do I create a RAID 0 (stripped) array using the serial ATA RAID controller and two serial ATA drives?
Answer
Note: A RAID 0 array is not fault tolerant. It is recommended that you backup any important data that you decide to store on the array.
To create a RAID 0 array please follow the steps below:
With the computer powered off, follow the instructions for installing the RAID controller correctly and connect both Serial ATA hard drives to the controller.
Boot your computer with the controller and drives already installed.
Watch your boot screens for a prompt that will ask you to press the Control and F keys at the same time to enter the Fastbuild utility and press those keys to enter.
Press the 1 key to enter Auto Setup.
Verify that the top of the screen says Optimize Array for: Performance.
If the top of the screen says Security instead of performance, highlight the word Security and press the right arrow button to change the word to Performance.
You should see that two hard drives are being used in the array and you will also see the total size of the array in MB.
Press the Control and Y keys at the same time to save the array configuration.
Press the Y key to create and quick initialize the array.
You will be warned that all data on the drives will be erased, press the Y key to proceed.
The array is now created, press any key to reboot.
To use the array for extra data storage only:
Install the latest service pack for your operating system to enable large drive support and use Disk Management to partition and format the array.
To use the array as your bootable system drive:
Set your BIOS to boot to CD first and boot from your Windows 2000/XP CD to load your operating system onto the array.
Windows will treat the array as one large drive and will install on the array just as it would on a single drive.
When you are prompted by Windows setup to press the F6 key to install SCSI or RAID drivers, you will need to press F6 and insert the driver disk that came with your RAID controller card.
Once the drivers for the card are installed you will be able to finish the installation of Windows 2000/XP onto the array. After the installation of Windows, please install the latest service pack for Windows to enable large drive support and avoid data corruption.
Note: Your system BIOS may require you to change the order of your boot sequence before you can boot your computer from a controller. For more information about adjusting options in your system BIOS, please contact the manufacturer of your computer or motherboard.
Just think of the bucks it would take to get a RAID system worth anything working on an old computer. Makes buying a new computer worthwhile.
S.M.A.R.T. is an acronym Self Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology. It is used to perform a quick analysis of the hard drive for problems during system boot up. It does not fix the problems. If a problem is encountered, you can use DLG Diagnostic utility to perform a more detailed analysis of the hard drive. All WD EIDE drives are compatible with S.M.A.R.T. version 2.0.
Older versions of S.M.A.R.T. in the BIOS may cause problems in your hard drive. If you have an older version of S.M.A.R.T. in the BIOS and it reports problems with your drive, you can disable it within the BIOS or contact the BIOS manufacturer for an updated BIOS revision.
See what I meant by off and not on with the older drives.
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 29. May 2004 @ 11:38
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KoolAid7
Suspended due to non-functional email address
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28. May 2004 @ 16:00 |
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hehe..I built my own computer. Got sick of the damm compaqs and Hp's and Dells. You can get them cheap, but they are bare boned and usually not easily upgradable.
p4 2.6 OC'd to 3.0 Hyper Thread tech, whatever that is.
1 Gig Mushkin PC3500 RAM
Abit IC7-max 3 Motherboard
80 GB Seagate HD
ATI Radeon 9600 Pro vid card.
Lite On DVD RW
Lite On Combo drive
Antec 430w True Power Supply
Windows XP (Ouch $$$)
Cost me Less than $1600 bucks and I am good for 5 years
or more. I figure it saves me money in the long run. Of course I had the bucks to spend and have no other money sucking hobbies, but I am very happy with the results.
Now, anybody know of a good CPU cooler that fits the 478 pin p4 chip?? (no liquid jobs please)
Thnx
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AfterDawn Addict
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29. May 2004 @ 04:57 |
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Life is good!
GrandpaBruce - Vietnam Vet - 1970 - 1971
Computer: Intel Core i7-920 Nehalim;Asus P6T Deluxe V2
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brobear
Suspended permanently
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29. May 2004 @ 06:26 |
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KooAid7
hehe, just a note and a question. Hyper Threading tech is likened to the difference between congested city traffic on a 2 lane higway and an 8 lane interstate on separated lanes. Old and slow compared to high speed interface. OCd only means they up the clock speed of the system. Just hope you have a front side bus of 800 MHz or better or that race horse will never get out of the chute. A lot of board chip setups are still around 400 MHz.
Now the question. Why such a small hard drive with all that CPU - RAM capacity? Thats like having a sportscar with no trunk. You can get there fast, but you don't have much room for the luggage.
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 29. May 2004 @ 11:39
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