Yet another external monitor flicker thread...;-(

Nezza wrote on 12/5/2002, 4:16 PM
OK, I'm real close to getting a kick ass setup here with Vegas, but I still get that occasional flicker on external monitor preview. It happens, say every 20-30 seconds, but not consistently, then nothing for a minute and then it starts again.

Here's my setup:

W2k Pro - SP2
VIA Epox 8k7a Mobo
Athlon 1600+
7200 IDE Maxtor
SB Live Value

I have:

+ Enabled dma on ide driver

+ Checked OHCI card is compliant (checked chipset on the card)

+ Made sure OHCI card is on it's own IRQ (by removing ACPI! - that WAS a pain)

+ Defragged my drives


Preview on the PC is fine, no flicker

Capture's fine, no dropped frames

Print to tape, I think this is fine, might have seen one little artifact, but not flicker related...

I've stripped out any unneeded cards, I only have network, sound blaster, Geforce and OHCI.

So...


Is there anything else I need to try or am I doomed to flicker on the external preview window for ever!

If you can help, please do, my wife would like to see me again!

Comments

vitalforce2 wrote on 12/5/2002, 4:43 PM
Although I'm a real amateur at tech inquiries, I still have a thought. I have what I think is the same intermittent 'flicker' or disruption pattern in the screen image for a split second, so I've tried turning off my autovirus program as well as a disk protection utility called "Go Back," since they both write to the disk in the background, at random. That seemed to help.
BillyBoy wrote on 12/5/2002, 11:52 PM
The short answer is if there is no flicker if you view the preview window off your PC (switch back and forth rapidly between your PC and external monitor next time it flickers) then VV isn't the cause.

Be more specific in detailing "flicker" for a more technical answer. A short time ago someone had a similar problem... turned out to be a firmware issue with his hardware.
Nezza wrote on 12/6/2002, 2:18 AM
The only program I have runnning in the background is nView, the Nvida multi-display manager which I need for my dual monitors.

Regarding the flicker, the best way to describe it is like a subliminal-split-second appearence of a "block".

Anyway, I was playing around and removed the network card completly, the flicker stopped???

I'm wondering if every time the network card does a poll or somthing I get the corruption?

I have the OHCI card on it's own IRQ, so I don't know what I can do to minimise that?

The soundblaster seems to coexist quite happily with no flicker with the OHCI card?
sqblz wrote on 12/6/2002, 6:34 AM
Nezza, I'm interested on that. What do you mean, taking the card out *physically* or disabling it in the Control Panel will be enough ?
The LAN card polls the LAN, so it delays a lot of your procedures (even startup and shutdown). But I am not prepared to install and remove it frequently (my machine is 1 meter high, is inside a compartment and has a thousand cables in the back ...)
Nezza wrote on 12/6/2002, 10:09 AM
I physically removed the card from pc (switched off obviously ;-)

I can't work out why that would interfere with the OHCI card, as the OHCI card has it's very own IRQ now?

The LAN card is just a standard RealTek.. And I do need that in this box!

Any ideas of anything else I could try?
sqblz wrote on 12/12/2002, 5:50 AM
I wonder, could you just disable the LAN card in the Control Panel. Or if you want to be more radical, you can go to the BIOS and disable the PCI slot which is holding that LAN card ... Anyway, you will not have to touch the Hardware, which is a bless.

The problem with the Lan card polling the Lan periodically is not a question of IRQ. I guess (I am not, definitelly, a techie, just a bloody curious...)
I think it is way more like the Antivirus that regularly generates some activity and grabs some clock cycles to do its work. If you think about it, you have A LOT of procedures running that may be periodically grabbing your CPU for small bits of attention, and some of them may be a nuisance to processes running in the foreground.
I recall some of these nasties: Antivirus, Unistallers, MS Office file change manager, email notifier, CD detectors, Direct CD drivers and CD insert notifiers, CPU temperature monitors, System Detectives (Dr. Watson, Cunfiguration Retrievers, Anti-Crash), ..., ..., ..., and Lan Cards.

My advice is: trace them all, kill them all. At least, while you do your work.
Nezza wrote on 12/12/2002, 8:25 AM
Just to let you all know that I fixed the problem, I know you were all wondering ;-)

It was basically the OHCI card at fault, for those in the UK I bought a PCLine Video Editing Kit from PC World for £30. I would avoid this card for Vegas, I took it back and exchanged for an ADS Pyro, £10 more and all works fine.

It looks like all firewire cards are not created equal, although it said it was IEEE compliant it did not specifically say it was OHCI compliant (although the OHCI driver loaded under W2K).

The PCLine card also had the chipset Sonic Foundry recommended, but anyway all is fixed and is working real stable. I have the Pyro card on it's own IRQ also.

I also treated myself to a new camcorder, the Sony TRV950. This thing rocks!
wcoxe1 wrote on 12/12/2002, 6:26 PM
Above, someone referred to someone who "Had a Firmware Problem." Well, it turned out that that did NOT fix the problem. I have a brand new replacement DAC-2, latest firmware, and the problem is still there. Nothing changed except the DAC-2, itself.

As mentioned, above, the regular on-screen preview is perfect, and the project copies to Tape wonderfully. Only the external monitor is flickering, and ONLY if I go through firewire to the DAC and then to Component on the monitor. If I use my TRV20 and then S-Video to the monitor it is fine.

After the holidays I plan on replacing the 1394 card and other things mentioned above in this thread. The image is wonderful, other than all those very distracting flashes. I have to get this thing fixed. It is driving me nuts, and I don't want to keep my TRV20 running all day, every day.