Why does my computer freeze when...

I try to do movie editting. I use Ulead’s Media Studio Pro 6.0 for working with my movie files. The problem happens in 1 of 2 places. 1–during the compiling or 2–playback of the compiled working file. Most often it’s during number 2 when the first few seconds will play fine (this is in the program’s playback window itself and not a separate application like Windows Player) but the I get a blue screen with a bunch of hex letters and numbers. I hit enter, get another blue screen with similar characters. About half a dozen screens later the program comes back but it’s completely frozen. All of Windows 98 is frozen actually. So I’m forced to reset. BIOS is fine, but when it gets to the screen where Win98 loads (where the colors scroll across the bottom) it locks up and refuses to go anywhere, including safe mode. I have to turn the machine off for about an hour before anything comes back.

Now here’s the tricky part: Why is this happening now and not a year ago before I upgraded? I used to have Win98, Diamond Stealth 3 video card, 128MB RAM, 5 GB, and the same program. Now I have Win98, GeForce 2, 256 MB RAM, 60 GB, but this program is causing me errors now and I can’t make movies anymore!

Any and all suggestions would be appreciated.

We need the text from the blue screens - the first few phrases such as:

“mediaplayer.exe caused an invalid page fault in something at 00000F5”

would do.

As soon as I get home I’ll cause some faults and get them posted a.s.a.p.

Ok, I went home, compiled, got the blue screens with the errors. And here are the messages I got after one crash.

A fatal exception 06 has occured at 0316:000004CA. The current application will be terminated.

A fatal exception 0E has occured at 0028:C0031C7A. The current application will be terminated.

A fatal. . . .0D. . . .0000:00000000. the current. . . .

The numbers are usually different each time the error occurs. I thought that maybe one of the memory chips could be bad, so I tried different ones in different slots with different combinations but the same thing kept happening. So anyone know what those error codes mean?

First off: Go to Windows Update and get all required updates. Update your Windows Media Player too.

Look into newer drivers for your video card.

You say you upgraded a year ago. Since then, have you been able to run your program without errors, and it’s only just now that things are breaking? Have you done anything new to the system recently?

Last summer was the last time I made a full movie. Early this spring I upgraded: new case, new mobo, new video card, same sound card, later on got 128 more RAM and hard drive. Reinstalled Windows, I actually got the updates last week, but I don’t remember seeing them saying anything about performance–except something about disk caching. Do you think it might be a problem with DirectX?

How do I even go about finding what version of DirectX I have now?

Go to Start --> Run --> Then type in “dxdiag.exe” without the quotation marks. That should give you a bunch of information about the version of DirectX on your system.

I have DX 8.1–which is the latest version out. Is it possible I have a bad memory chip?

It’s possible, I suppose. I’m no expert on diagnosing computer problems, but I do know that a bad RAM stick can cause all kinds of funky problems. If you suspect one of your sticks is bad, you can check by swapping them out or trying them in different RAM slots on the motherboard.

Some other things to try… Make sure your drivers are up to date, but not betas. You can also check the website for the specific application(s) that are causing you problems. There might be some known issues with it along with workarounds or patches.

It could be memory, but it is too predictable, memory problems tend to be extremely random at best. Try removing/moving memory modules around. Have you tried re-installing ulead since this started? The fact that you have to let it set a while makes me wonder about a heat problem, are all your fans working at full speed? If your cpu fan is slow, it would be fine till you really push the processor, which would then overheat. But usually that is a pretty random effect too.

Try re-installing.

Same problem no matter what combination of chips/slots I use. Drivers are up to date. And heat is not even a factor in this b/c I have 7 fans inside that box. The cpu never gets above 118F (i know it’s 5F over the limit but it’s never stopped it before). I have 2 copies of Ulead, same problem with both of them though. Is it at all possible that the hardware that I have just doesn’t like to do movies?

Here’s a page of reasons for a Fatal exception error 06, scroll down to get the OE errors

http://www.generation.net/~hleboeuf/fatlexer.htm#FATLEXERO6

It looks like something is messing with your memory.

Here’s a page for updating Ulead 6.0 to 6.0.2.

I’m trying to find information about hardware conflicts on their page, but so far nothing. I’ll keep looking for you.

What kind of processor and MBoard are you using?

You might also try this.

I’m using an ABIT KT7 motherboard with AMD Duron 1.2GHz cpu.

I went to the MBoard’s web site and found a bunch of links for downloads. Get the one close to the bottom of the page. It’s the VIA 4 in 1 service pack. Absolutely necessary.

You can probably skip updating your BIOS, but if you want to, that page provides many links to do so.