Forum: PC Version Technical Support - Topic: Strange video problem with W7 & 6.0.3 @ last nights gig

I had 2 gigs last night, first was a bar gig 8-10.30pm then my nightclub residency 11-2am, only 50 metres apart.

In the first bar gig, to enable me move my laptop setup to the other gig quickly, I did not use Video. I unticked the Activate Video in the configuration, I also unticked the Activate on Load. I played the sound from my videos all night, but, obviously the video was disabled. After playing for 10 minutes, the right hand player would not load correctly (the left player operated as normal). The stripe was only showing 10 seconds ahead. I got around this by 'chasing' it i.e. clicking with the mouse close to the end of the stripe. This forced the drawing of the stripe along to the end while the other side was playing out. In the Options Max Load is set to always. I tried ticking the Activate Video and the window appeared, but, on pressing play, the video display was stationary with a shaky stutter and was obviously not going to play. So I unticked it and persevered til the end of the gig.

After moving to my nightclub gig, everything was reset to play video as normal. I did notice that the drawing of the stripe seemed to hesitate loading after the first 10 seconds then continued to load.

Got through the gigs ok, but, got it all to do in the same gigs again tonight. This time I intend to leave the video on but just hide the output window, hopefully it should be ok.

Started my first gig tonight with the Video enabled in a window hidden behind VDJ. I started the gig before it got busy with some long house tracks, about the 3rd house track wouldn't load into the right hand player like last night (or loaded about half a second). Tried a couple of tracks and the same response. I then tried a normal commercial Video and that loaded OK. Everything worked as normal for the rest of that gig.

I dismantled and moved my gear to the next nightclub gig. When I started up the computer, the power button lit up and the wireless network lit up orange, normally goes to blue when Windows starts. But, nothing was happening. Held down the power button for 8 seconds to kill it, then tried again. Same thing happened, laptop just would not fire up! Very frustrating as there lots of people gathering and I needed to get started. A couple of months ago this happened at another nightclub, I had disconnected the USB cables (RMX & powered hub) and it fired up OK, then plugged the USB cables in after Windows was up and running. Tried that and it worked. Phew!!

Everything seemed to be running fine until......... an hour after starting, the screen disappeared to black and looked like the laptop was shutting down. I had my hand on the volume of my backup CD ready when the screen flashed back into life and VDJ was still there as though nothing had happened. I checked the output screen that the public could see and it was white. I then went into the config video tab and unchecked then re-checked the video output. The video returned as normal to the screen. I noticed that the external USB drive was not showing in the explorer, so, I unplugged it from the powered hub and plugged it back in, it then showed up correctly. After this everything ran normally til the end of the gig.

On analysing whats going on here, it seems to be either my USB hub not playing nice or a dodgy cable somewhere. The videos are all on the laptop's internal hard drive, the long house tracks are on an external USB hard drive. It is when I try to play long tunes from my external drive when the trouble starts, but, it is intermittent. At home I usually have the External drive connected direct to the laptop and have not had any of these problems.

I have a spare hub that I could use or I could change my USB strategy. I have 3 USB ports on this laptop, currently I use one for the RMX and one for the powered hub. The powered hub has connected to it; 500gig HD, mouse, cooling plate and PC to TV Converter. These last two only need power not data. I could connect the mouse and 500gig HD direct to the laptop leaving the powered hub to send power to the cooling plate and the PC to TV Converter. I have used my camera through the USB hub to provide a 'live' feed, but, the current gigs I'm doing are a bit too dark and haven't use the camera for a couple of months.

When I got home I fired up the laptop and checked the Administrative Tools/Event Viewer to find out what happened to the screen. It shows;

Event 4101 Display - Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered.

This happened at a different gig two weeks ago, exact same thing. This is the latest nVidia display drivers for my laptop designed for W7.
Anybody have a clue?

OK, there is two separate issues going on here.

1. The video driver randomly losing connection with Windows and resetting itself. It is the latest W7 compatible driver from nVIDIA.

2. Loading from my external USB Hard Drive is problematic

Been doing some tests today. I can load a Video into the left or right player from the internal hard drive, zips in very quickly. While the video is playing if I try to load an mp3 from the USB hard drive it seems to crawl in as though it was a USB 1.1 port not USB 2.0.

Oh nearly forgot, sometimes when loading an mp3 from the external it will only start to draw the stripe after pressing play. Just fired up the laptop and its still doing it.

All ports have been checked and all are running at full speed.
Changed USB cable, no difference.
Tried all 3 USB ports, no difference.
Tried a different hard drive, no difference.
Uninstalled 6.0.3 and installed 6.0.2, no difference.
Defragged the external hard drive, no difference.
Tried the USB external on my now retired ex gig laptop, but, as it is a 5 year old single 1.6 processor it was always slow to load anyway.

On occasion I can load a couple of mp3s from the USB external quickly like the Videos of the internal, but, it is not consistent. Then crawls again, very frustrating!

It's starting to look like the Windows 7 system. It was an upgrade from Vista.
My next trick is to do a clean install and see if that makes any difference.

Anybody had this weird problem before???

Just played a video in the left player and tried loading a 6.30min song in the right player, it took 28 seconds to draw the stripe!

Definately something not right.

Just tried swapping them around, Vid in right, mp3 from USB in left, same :-(

Must be Windows......... anybody????

Config Option - Load full activated ?

which video format ? Filename ?

Yep, "Max Load" in the options is set to "Always"

Video's are mostly avi

Just spent all night doing a Clean install of Windows 7, just installing updated drivers from HP website.

On first try, the fault seems to be gone, but, not tested properly yet. Still more updated drivers to install.

can you do this replicate this again ?

do you have other video formats for test it ? mp4 ?

OK, after a "clean install" everything looked to be running OK.

New gig on Thursday was fine with no apparent problems.

At my Friday nightclub residency, after 3 1/2 hours VDJ crashed with the two options onscreen (shutdown/recover). The song continued to play, I waited til the end of the song and then raised the volume on my backup CD that is always running on continuous play ready. Ticked the "produce a report" box then tried Recover, VDJ shut down to the desktop. Tried starting VDJ up and got an "error in the video driver". decided to shut down Windows completely and restart. Everything started up normal, so, I reloaded my request list and started using the program again. Ten minutes later, the screen went blank for a few seconds and then recovered with the message "video driver stopped communicating with Windows but was recovered successfully". My output screens had gone blank so I unticked and reticked the video output in the configuration, my screens came back to normal with video output.

Crash ID=69715490 (date=911280121, version=6.0.3 Pro, build=603, thread=Video, dump=8b50048b, excode=c0000005 (0,4))

Was seriously considering restoring Vista back onto the laptop. When I got home I started investigating. What I discovered was a bit of a surprise, the video driver for my nVIDIA graphics card was the Vista driver not W7!!! This was from a "clean install" while connected to the internet (supposed to get the latest W7 drivers), in the "Device Manager" I clicked on "Update Driver....." which installed the correct W7 driver. I then decided to go through every device in the list and try "Update Driver.....". Everything was up to-date until I reached "Sound, Game and Video Controllers", I found that the "nVIDIA High Definition Audio" updated with a new driver. Haven't seen this before and am now wondering if this has been my Video problem since upgrading to W7. Only time will tell, still won't feel confident until I get about a month of no video problems.

Another short (2 1/2 hours) residency gig tomorrow night, will see how it performs. Gonna persevere with W7 for now. Wish me luck, its not been easy, two upgrades and one clean install so far.