Another thing to look at is the memory usage of Vegas (easily watched with Task Manager). Just start up Vegas, note the amount of memory Task Manager is reporting in use by Vegas, and check back periodically. If this number just keeps growing, even when you're not doing anything, this could possibly be related to the shutdown.

It's kinda odd you mentioned this problem. I'm on Vegas 4 still, and about a month ago, I was working on some editing, got tired, saved my work, and crashed for the night. In the morning, my machine had mysteriously rebooted itself (and this is a fairly new Dell loaded up with plenty of RAM, no dust buildup, with no prior record of stability problems). I would even venture a guess that it's happened a second time as well, but I always thought it was some random event of the cosmos causing the reboot. Now I need to rethink this... (and watch my memory usage!!!)


David

Interesting note about running with the case open ... Most CPU heat sink fans only have enough power to move the air around the heat sink. They don't have enough power to push the air completely away. The circulation inside the computer case depends on the main airflow from the power supply or other exhaust fan to pull air through the case. The heat sink fan merely facilitates getting the hot air into this stream faster. With the case open there is no full circulation past the processor and the air around the processor will keep growing warmer and warmer while it sits there near the heat sink. True, some of the heat will escape through radiation and some through convection as the warm air gradually blends with the room air. However, cooling is nowhere near as efficient as when a stream of air is also forced through the case.

If you decide to run your computer with the case open for long periods of time you should get a small household or tabletop fan to blow fresh room air into the case.

Thanks for clarifying my response Chienworks. I failed to mention that you should use a fan to increase the cooling.

Dave T2

Very Interesting Guys!

For the past 3-4 months my computer has been mysteriously rebooting while running no programs at all. I ruled out viruses and can't make heads or tales of it. Never thought to check the fans at all.

Added more equipment and figured the home electrical panel just couldn't handle all the equipment. Unplugged almost everything and it still does it.

If its not a virus or the cooling system...could it be the power supply? 2.0 ghz processor and 1 gig of ram. Lots of toys connected with 325 watts of power pushing it for the past 3-years.

Vegas 5 and 6

Imput please,

Skywatcher

Ha,
you think that's wierd, I can get one of my PCs to reboot when it's switched off. Thing is most of these newer machines leave power on the 1394 and USB ports even when they're shut down and an external glitch from pluggin / unplugging devices can trigger the thing to boot up, rather spooky if you ask me. I've noticed other oddities like the keyboard blinking when I plug a VCR in even though the PC is shutdown.
Obviously PC <> Politically Correct, otherwise they'd know that when I say "Off", I mean "Off".
Bob.

well, it now appears that the problem is not Vegas. (Whew!)
My PC now powers down after only a few minutes regardless of what is running.

I think I'll try removing that poltergeist plug-in I foolishly installed. If that doesn't work, I'm betting it's the fan/power-supply after all.

You could also try the following things. Doing the following checks should really help you pinpoint the problem and costs you nothing except time.

2- If your machine powers down, it indicates a hardware problem of some sort. Software problems are not going to power your machine down.

--------

Many motherboards from the ~1999-2002 era have faulty capacitors. To check, open up the side of your computer's case and take a look at the capacitors (they look like cylinders). Refer to the following image:
http://www.careyholzman.com/caps/images/busted_caps_2.jpg
A bulging capacitor like the one picture indicates a faulty capacitor. The brown stuff on the capacitor is leaked electrolyte.

If your computer does not have faulty capacitors, then stress test it with Prime95 and a motherboard voltage/temperature monitoring utility. Stress testing will detect faulty hardware. If you can rule out the hardware, it should be a software problem.

Prime95
Prime95 is a distributed computing program that tries to find certain prime numbers. Its 'torture test' stresses your computer with mathematical calculations and checks the output against known results. This makes prime95 a good diagnostic for instability problems from your CPU and your RAM. Download it from:

http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm

Run the “torture test” through options --> torture test --> Ok
Prime95 will stop immediately once it detects an error, and continue indefinitely if it does not. Prime95 will log errors in results.txt in the installation directory. The icon will also turn from red to yellow when it detects an error.
If your computer fails Prime95, it is probably a CPU error although it could also be the RAM or the power supply. Use memtest86 (memtest86.org) to check if the problem is RAM-related. Use the following program(s) to help narrow things down further.

Speedfan or other monitoring utility
Speedfan does the same thing as Motherboard Monitor and your motherboard manufacturer's monitoring utility (not all motherboards will have one). These programs can take readings off the motherboard's sensors and tell you if the temperatures are too high or if the voltages are out of spec. You may also wish to run these programs as they are more descriptive. Your motherboard's monitoring utility is the best to use (try looking on your motherboard manufacturer's website).

To get Speedfan, download it off of
http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php

Look at the "Readings" tab in SpeedFan (this should be the first thing you see). Look at the bottom for the voltage readings. The reading for the +12V, +5V, and +3.3V voltages should be within 5% of 12, 5, and 3.3. Each monitoring utility calls these voltages a little differently, but they will be labelled with the numbers 12, 5, and 3.3. Faulty voltages indicates a power supply problem (or motherboard, if it has leaking capacitors).

The temperatures should generally not exceed 70C. High temperatures indicate overheating components.

It's quite possible that your power supply is borderline in capacity. If you've added I/O boards and hard disks, you could be seeing a PSU shutdown. Different software drives the hardware in different ways, so it's easy to blame the new software.

Steve

Hi Skywatcher,

A family member's computer had the same problem. I worked out what the problem was in her case - the thermal paste that's sandwiched between the CPU & heatsink to ensure good heat transfer needed replacing (I'm not sure what happened to it - dried out?). Might be worth a try - a small tube of paste should be less than £/$ 10

Cheers,

Scott

Hmmm .. . Does anybody "KNOW" if the update, that is V6b>V6c, has included some ways in which the PC is being used, how can I say this, being used more efficiently? I am just wondering now if, like I had with MPEG2 renders, that there is more maths going on than previously? If this IS the case then, speaking for myself, with a "borderline" cooling system - yeah you've seen the pictures - that V6"C" has kinda winkled out the frailties - my "cooling" system being a point in case? What do you think? Maybe "C" IS on steroids?!?!?

Grazie

Intel's factory thermal paste (that comes with retail CPUs) is only adequate.

You can significantly reduce the CPU temperature just by replacing it with Arctic Silver 5, this has been rated top goop in direct comparisons. I use nothing else, it really works. Both Fry's and CompUSA sell it, and of course Newegg and the other usual suspects.

I am just about to test the Thermaltake XP-120 CPU heatsink also for my uncompressed workstation, not to get more cooling, but to get more peace and quiet. This thing uses heatpipes and slightly resembles a whisky distillery. It is BIG.

If you stress test your system with Prime95, that is a good way to check for CPU overheating and/or power supply problems.

2- Artic Silver 5 does drop temperatures noticeably, but no you don't really need it. The retail CPUs are designed with lots of headroom.