The problem is it crashes my computer and it's only recently that this is occurring.

Having problems rendering.

That is a heat problem. You need to provide more cooling or clean the fans in your system.

DaveT2 is correct wrt cpu heat.
A modest quad with 64 bit will run circles around what you have now.

What's already been said.

Turn off the computer, open the case and blow it out.

Then install SpeedFan

I run it on my ancient XP box. It works great. However, for added heat dissipation, I point a small fan at the case during rendering as I have a stock fan on my hmmph P4.

"So much so I can't use any other process on the computer."

After you take care of the overheating problem, the simple solution to that is to set the process priority of Vegas to "below normal". Then anything else you care to run should be nicely snappy.

Thank you all for the advice. Cleaned the computer last night and will try to run it again.

Will download speed fan, think about buying a laptop for the rendering and set the priority low on Vegas, after learning how to do that.

I'm an old time fully retired glamour/nude photographer who only knew what to do behind the camera. computers are not my thing.

But in telling my life story, I have to edit some of the content. So need a computer that works.

So far all has failed. I can render and do nothing else. Until Monday when it goes to the repair man again!!!

OK it's old and should be retired like me. LOL

So recommendations on modest small laptops to do rendering and little else. It could even be a stack computer as it will never leave my office.

I'm a miser so please no all bangs and whistles type computers. LOL

The reason I did not suggest lowering process priority is that it makes very little difference on your machine, which is underpowered. It's not like I never tried.
:-o

The only solution is to acquire an i-class computer (good prices right now on Win7 64), and dedicate it to video editing (and not games!!!). You will then want to continue to do everything else on your old machine. Don't wait for Windows 9 to come out, because it's going to suck for a couple of years.

You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear, I know, it was a great system in its day . . .

Thanks for the suggestion.

I went around the shops today and found a few that were suitable, starting at $400 so not expensive. Will look around and see what else is available, I can stretch the budget a little more. Just no9 need to go over board and buy something that's all bells and whistles.

Will make sure they have Win7 64.

Yes the old dog was good in it's day. Now only good for surfing. As for computer games, never got that bug.

I bet you have some or many high res photos in your project. That will cause issues. Downres them prior to adding to the timeline.

You don't say what version you have. There's a good chance that installing it on a new PC will have the same issue if you're using high res pics.

That's a good point, will try to render from the low res videos and see what difference it makes.

Low res stills, not low res videos.

Tried tio render a low quality wmv to a 2 minute clip. Original is 89 mb for 16 minutes.

CPU usage was at 90%

Core 1 shot up to 60c
Core 2 to 58c

Stopped rendering and they dropped to normal. Could there be a bug in Vegas which is causing the problem as everything else I do is great, even auto converting raw images to Jpegs.

The most rigourous thing a computer can do is render video. This keeps the CPUs in an active state for a long period of time. Much longer than converting images. so if you are going to have a heat problem, rendering video is when it most likely will show up.

If this is a new problem, then you need to verify that your CPU fan and heatsink are clear of dust. Sometimes just blowing it off is not enough. You might need to remove it and clean it and then re-install it. Make sure all fans are working at max efficiency, free of dust on their blades and the grids.

Going to test it with a free converter, if it's the same. will take the fan out and do a good clean.

Thanks again for the help.

If all else fails, it goes back to the repair shop tomorrow and I'm buying a new one soon. Might buy a new one anyway, they're so cheap now.