ISSUES: NEED HELP DESPERATELY

Jay Gladwell wrote on 2/9/2008, 7:26 AM

I'm working on a client's 5-minute project and things are coming close to grinding to halt. When I started the project (Vegas 5) everything was going smoothly. Nothing taxing on the system, nothing out of the ordinary--video, small stills, text, audio.

Whenever I ask Vegas do do something, it sits there and thinks about it. The CPU hovers at around 35-45%, depending on the task. Even something as simple as deleting a trim off a clip takes several seconds from the time I hit "delete" to when it actually does it. WHen I move the cursor from point A to point B it takes forever On the high-end, attempting RAM renders are totally useless.

Is there anyone that would be willing to allow me to call them and see if we can figure out what's going on here--is it the computer or is it Vegas?

Thanks in advance!

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MTuggy wrote on 2/10/2008, 6:28 PM

This was a post I made last week that solved my problem with V8 killing my system by consuming the memory.
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I had a problem when trying to render anything HD - usually after 2-3 minutes into the project. I fiddled around with all kinds of settings in Vegas and with the operating system. Here is my solution so far though I still need to test on several more projects to see what has actually done the trick.

First, the problem is some kind of memory leak issue from what I can tell and if you watch Vegas' memory usage, you'll see it ramps up and locks up the program or your system entirely with over a GB of memory usage or close to it. (When I made the page file adjustments below, the usage dropped in half and stayed stable throughout.)

So, what I found that corrected the problem was this:
1. Set your threads to 1 in the Vegas preferences (Dual Core system). Can't tell you what a quad-core would need yet.
2. In your system settings, make sure Windows is managing your Page File on your hard drives (in my case, drive C and D). I had it set on a custom size and that, I believe, was the problem.

I messed with all kinds of settings (RAM preview settings - why should that make a difference? but it seemed to make the lock ups happen later in a project). Only the two things above have corrected the problem so far. I still have some more render tests to do to see if indeed the threads have to be that low.

Let me know if it works for you

craftech wrote on 2/10/2008, 6:49 PM

Jay,
After you check your hard drive space and swap file setup as I described also try the following:

Tinyurl has a few good utilities.

CPUMon
Provides an adjustable transparent cpu usage graph and memory monitor.

Restore Point
Double click on it and it immediately creates a restore point for you any time you want.

Run System File Checker to scan your system files for corruption:

Start/Run/............type sfc / scannow

You may have a problem with codec hunting (stranger things have happened).

Create a
codec library courtesy of SourceForge.
John

johnmeyer wrote on 2/10/2008, 7:22 PM

In this post: A Plethora of problems from a few weeks back, many people described solutions to problems which, while not identical to yours, were in the same neck of the woods.

Something I posted there might help you too (one of these has already been suggested):

1. Set RAM preview to zero.
2. Go to Options -> Preferences -> General and uncheck "Close media files when not the active application."

This second one may seem benign, but I think it may actually change the memory management -- and perhaps in a fairly fundamental way. Try it and see what happens.

JFJ wrote on 2/10/2008, 8:17 PM

How come nobody is disecting the hardware end? it was and has been working fine for a long while, nothing has changed....suddenly he's having bad sluggishness/problems.

Yes, do get rid of Norton (get AVG free - better and still a small footprint)...but it's time to focus on the system. System probs aren't as rare as you hope them to be I'm afraid...yet the problems can be as random as all hell.

First I'd list all (yep - ALL) your system parts here so people can better help. Exact model #'s and vers #'s. What slots all cards are in, etc.

Then in with the easier - Blow out and vac all dust inside there
Then check drivers (audio, mobo, etc.). Reload and see what helps. I've repaired some cases where a mobo/chipset driver needed to be reloaded after somehow getting corrupted.

Then time to check hard drives (hate to say it but quite likely for odd sort of sudden sys issues), it could be the system drive or any of your record/work drives (I'd start with the sys drive - backup now with acronis or whatever you use). A pain but...hey that's why they're called problems.

You'd be amazed of the random/weird probems an "about to go" power supply will cause. Test with another if you can.

And (a bummer) same goes with motherboards (another likely cuplrit with probs you're describing) - caps can fail/leak, connections worn, random who knows what's caused by blackouts/brownouts or the like. Having your sys on a good batt backup can pay off.

Save all work as one or more of these probs would probably require a fix then reinstall to get back on the right track.

For some reason I'm getting the vibe this is sys related. Then again maybe he solved it and it wasn't (didn't read all replies).

deusx wrote on 2/10/2008, 10:23 PM

maybe the drive is dying, maybe one of the ram sticks died or is about to. Could be anything ( as usual )

The best thing to do ( if option is available ), is install Vegas on another PC, transfer the project there and see how it goes.

Second option, backup everything, wipe out windows and reinstall from scratch ( make sure you have all of the drivers necessary before you do this ), see if that works. May sound drastic, but it only takes a few hours, which is a lot less than trying to figure out what's wrong.
If it still has problems after a completely fresh install of windows and Vegas, then you know it's most likely hardware.

craftech wrote on 2/11/2008, 4:14 AM

How come nobody is disecting the hardware end?
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Because that is not first.

John

Jay Gladwell wrote on 2/12/2008, 6:38 AM

I've tried most of what's been suggested, but not all, not yet. Today I have some down time waiting for the client to make a decision. However, I am hesitant to try too drastic measures for fear of a major loss of project data.

As many have said, I think it's more likely a computer problem than a Vegas problem. Then, on the other hand, it might be a user issue. I have been known to make mistakes from time to time.

Thanks to all those who have contributed to this thread.