Editing PC question

MikeA wrote on 5/10/2012, 9:45 AM
I just recently inherited a desktop PC from my Mother in Law. (She didn't pass, we got her a laptop and she wasn't using the desktop any longer). It's a Quad Core AMD 9600 2.3GHz processor machine with 4GB of 667MHz RAM and a 1TB HDD. I'm not sure if the HDD is 5400 RPM or 7200. We had it built for her when I spec'd it out

I loaded Sony Vegas 8 32bit on it and have been working on some projects but it's been tough because just about anytime I change something on the timeline then press Play, there's a lag before playback starts. Or, I'll be working and the program suddenly freezes and a message comes up saying that Sony Vegas has to close. I've even had a number of occasions where I'm working and it just shuts down; no warning or anything.

I'm wondering where the bottleneck might be in this PC. I'm not sure what video card is in it but I'm sure it close to the bottom of the line. It apparently uses some of the RAM for video RAM because when I go into the system window it states that there's 3.26GB of memory available. If it is a 5400 RMP HDD could that be what's causing this? Is there a way to tell what speed the HDD is without digging into the machine?

Thanks guys, I thought I was doing a good thing by grabbing this machine when I had the chance but it's been kind of frustrating now getting it to work.

Comments

TheHappyFriar wrote on 5/10/2012, 12:06 PM
I've got a 9600 with 4GB DDR so it could be something on your motherboard, a windows glitch, etc.

I have a 256gb IDE C drive for all my programs, a 500gb SATA data drive & a 500gb USB2 project/audio drive. It runs near perfect, I don't have any crashes with Vegas 10 (had 8 on it before). Infact, I normally keep the TL playing while I'm modifying things ahead of it so I don't need to pause.

Check the CPU fan is mounted properly (serious on this one, it causes all my crashes when I first built the machine), might want to just blank & reinstall Windows, just to eliminate any possible junk on the machine.
TheRhino wrote on 5/10/2012, 12:51 PM
I agree with HappyFriar... Make sure you have a 2nd internal SATA just for video, reinstall Windows to remove bloatware, and clean/check hardware to make certain CPU is not overheating and throttling down. Not sure about your specific CPU, but some will slow-down if they get too hot... You can download RealTemp, Speedfan or CPUz to check-out temps & fan speeds.

Lastly, I would not edit HD video on that system as renders will take forever & it may not do so well displaying realtime video at decent preview quality. For SD you should be fine. It's actually a faster system than I used back in the day with SD video & Vegas 8.0c.

Workstation C with $600 USD of upgrades in April, 2021
--$360 11700K @ 5.0ghz
--$200 ASRock W480 Creator (onboard 10G net, TB3, etc.)
Borrowed from my 9900K until prices drop:
--32GB of G.Skill DDR4 3200 ($100 on Black Friday...)
Reused from same Tower Case that housed the Xeon:
--Used VEGA 56 GPU ($200 on eBay before mining craze...)
--Noctua Cooler, 750W PSU, OS SSD, LSI RAID Controller, SATAs, etc.

Performs VERY close to my overclocked 9900K (below), but at stock settings with no tweaking...

Workstation D with $1,350 USD of upgrades in April, 2019
--$500 9900K @ 5.0ghz
--$140 Corsair H150i liquid cooling with 360mm radiator (3 fans)
--$200 open box Asus Z390 WS (PLX chip manages 4/5 PCIe slots)
--$160 32GB of G.Skill DDR4 3000 (added another 32GB later...)
--$350 refurbished, but like-new Radeon Vega 64 LQ (liquid cooled)

Renders Vegas11 "Red Car Test" (AMD VCE) in 13s when clocked at 4.9 ghz
(note: BOTH onboard Intel & Vega64 show utilization during QSV & VCE renders...)

Source Video1 = 4TB RAID0--(2) 2TB M.2 on motherboard in RAID0
Source Video2 = 4TB RAID0--(2) 2TB M.2 (1) via U.2 adapter & (1) on separate PCIe card
Target Video1 = 32TB RAID0--(4) 8TB SATA hot-swap drives on PCIe RAID card with backups elsewhere

10G Network using used $30 Mellanox2 Adapters & Qnap QSW-M408-2C 10G Switch
Copy of Work Files, Source & Output Video, OS Images on QNAP 653b NAS with (6) 14TB WD RED
Blackmagic Decklink PCie card for capturing from tape, etc.
(2) internal BR Burners connected via USB 3.0 to SATA adapters
Old Cooler Master CM Stacker ATX case with (13) 5.25" front drive-bays holds & cools everything.

Workstations A & B are the 2 remaining 6-core 4.0ghz Xeon 5660 or I7 980x on Asus P6T6 motherboards.

$999 Walmart Evoo 17 Laptop with I7-9750H 6-core CPU, RTX 2060, (2) M.2 bays & (1) SSD bay...

TheHappyFriar wrote on 5/10/2012, 1:38 PM
I edit HD all the time! :) Heck, I do everything on that machine! :D
MikeA wrote on 5/15/2012, 9:01 PM
Hmmm, interesting that others are using basically the same system and getting good results.

Well, I got some more information about this system. The HDD is a Samsung 502IJ, and is 500GB, not 1TB as I thought. It is a 7200 RPM drive so that's good. The OS is XP Home SP3. I have not gone through and done all the tweaks to it that I know are available so that may have an effect too. And finally, the Motherboard is an Asus M3a78-EM. It'll handle up to 8GB of RAM.

Oh yeah and I'm storing all my media and .veg files on an external HD, a 1TB GRaid connected via USB. It has a SATA connection but I don't know if this PC has an external SATA connection. Could that be the culprit?

There is definitely something wrong though, it just keeps crashing. And I've only got 6 tracks (5 video, 1 audio) on the timeline and very few effects. I've also had problems opening the audio tracks in Sony Sound Forge (ver. 7). It tries to but it keeps hanging. I don't know if that is a separate problem or somehow related to this other issue I'm having with Vegas.

Thanks for all of your assistance!

Mike
Steve Mann wrote on 5/15/2012, 10:17 PM
"I've even had a number of occasions where I'm working and it just shuts down; no warning or anything."

The whole PC? Like someone pulled the plug? Clean out the dust bunnies.



"then press Play, there's a lag before playback starts. Or, I'll be working and the program suddenly freezes and a message comes up saying that Sony Vegas has to close."

Only one hard-disk drive? How full is it?
MikeA wrote on 5/16/2012, 7:48 AM
Sorry, guess I should have clarified. No, not the whole PC, just Vegas. BOOM! Gone.

And for the HDD question, there's a little less than 300GB left on a 1TB G-RAID external drive.

And, one other thing. I don't know why I put that I'm using Vegas 8, but I'm actually using Vegas Pro 10e.
MikeA wrote on 5/16/2012, 7:49 AM
Happy Friar, what speed is your RAM?
chap wrote on 5/16/2012, 6:36 PM
What type of footage are you trying to edit? I can assure you H.264 or 1080p is way too much for that machine. SD should be fine.

Also, try selectively pre-rendering video before previewing and see if that helps...

chap
Laurence wrote on 5/16/2012, 6:43 PM
HDV or XDCAM footage is way easier in the CPU as well. On a machine like that, using an intermediate like XDCAM .mp4 or .mxf will be workable.
MikeA wrote on 5/21/2012, 7:41 AM
Thanks Chap! that's what it must be. What I finally did was clean up a bunch of space on my trusty old HP laptop with VP 10e on it and I just brought the native files over to it. It's working like a charm!

By the way Chap, where is the bottleneck in the desktop machine with H.264 1920x1080 files? Is it the processor, memory, external USB HDD???

One more question: What do you mean selectively pre-rendering before previewing?