freezing

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nextgen1

nextgen1

DJ Extraordinaire
Sep 23, 2006
3,178
784
62
Waterford, CA.
www.tngdj.com
Ok guys this is a question probably for the computer jocks. Last night I did a wedding I had my computer running for about 9 hours total. I did not use my usb cooling fan under my laptop.

One of my programs I use to DJ with froze and I had to totaly get out of that program. I also use another program that was running music for the event dances. It skipped a couple of times 3 times in 30 seconds then all was good and the other program finally let me out.

I did have my back up plan with the music on a CD and ready to go if I needed it. What do you gentlemen think went wrong there. It worked quite well earlier just not later on in the night when

I had the problem.

I felt maybe it was do to the lack of cooling the base it sits on is carpeted what is your opinion. The computer is and acer bought last year with 1 gig of ram and running windows xp.

I have used this many times but the first time with this rig. My other system had a one inch lift for cooling. I'm not gonna say it didn't give me the chills it was right in the middle of the money dance.
 
did you close out internet connection? Also the heat causes many mysterious issues. This is a very shady arena as it could be many things you might have had too many things runnning in the background. Was it VDJ/PCDJ/Mixmeister each of them use more of the memory than others which would factor differently. More details needed. Hopefully one of the truly comp literates willl help.
Dave thanks so much for joinung us here and in Vegas. Truly met a awesome friend you and your wife are lots of fun. Thanks again for cabbing us to the House of Blues.
 
Was your anti virus program running in the background?
 
I would try to reproduce the conditions in your house to see if it is heat related. Also check all the tasks that where going on on the system. Sometimes too many processes take place at the same time and can eat up your RAM in a hurry.
 
Definitely don't just set it on carpet -- put a board, plexiglass, book, SOMETHING under it that's hard and flat so that the fans can actually pull in some air!

Then replicate the problem and see if you can remedy it :)
 
The programs I was running where Traktor DJ 3.2 and J Rivers media player.
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Were you running both programs at the same time on the same computer?

If so, there could be a conflict with one of them hogging the audio interface, which could hang the other program. I've seen that happen with iTunes and MusicMatch a lot.
 
I would suspect a heating issue. Placing the laptop on a carpeted surface is horrible. No ifs, and or buts about it.

Why didn't you use the laptop cooler? I always use one with a lappy. Even if you don't use one, at least raise the laptop up so that air can get under it.
 
Because you were running 2 programs on the same laptop and only one of them burped (if I'm reading correctly), then I don't think it was heat related.

I'm thinking it was a resource issue where one of the two DJ programs, or something running in the background demanded more than your system could provide. Hence the burp.

I also think the may be tough to duplicate but it's certainly worth a try.
 
nextgen1 said:
Actually one of them stopped working and the other had major lag issues when trying to start the next song almost 10 seconds or more for songs to appear and start.
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That's a common symptom of another application taking up all your resources.

If I open 40 tabs in Firefox then start my mail client and try to compose a new message, my mail client crashes because Firefox has already eaten all my RAM.
 
Well, the fighting-over-soundcard issue doesn't seem right. Any soundcard today can play many multiple streams at once. I remember back in the day when if you were listening to a song and someone send you an IM, it couldn't play the IM-alert noise because the song was playing. That's not the case today, as I'm sure most of you know.

Check your activity levels with both programs running. Right-click on the taskbar, go to Task Manager, and click the Performance tab. If your PF (page file) is high on the bar graph you need more RAM, and if the CPU is consistantly running full throttle I would say it's time for a new computer.
 
Any soundcard today can play many multiple streams at once.
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Not always so, I'm afraid to say.

DirectSound, which is the audio interface part of DirectX, allows "hooking" into the interface, which does not permit other apps to get to it. The other app, can then hang on either an asynchronous or synchronous call to DirectSound.

Not bustin' on ya awdj, but that's the way the interface works.

Too many "programmers" in the world, writing iTunes type software in VB, that don't take into account other software that may be trying to do something worthwhile. They can hose the whole OS in quick time :sqwink: :sqbiggrin:
 
awdj said:
Well, the fighting-over-soundcard issue doesn't seem right. Any soundcard today can play many multiple streams at once. I remember back in the day when if you were listening to a song and someone send you an IM, it couldn't play the IM-alert noise because the song was playing. That's not the case today, as I'm sure most of you know.

Check your activity levels with both programs running. Right-click on the taskbar, go to Task Manager, and click the Performance tab. If your PF (page file) is high on the bar graph you need more RAM, and if the CPU is consistantly running full throttle I would say it's time for a new computer.
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Dave I'm no computer expert but the above is good advice. My son is an engineer and He has told me whenever the system locks up or runs very slow check your task mgr., number of programs running, and don't forget there can be programs running in the background that won't appear on the task mgr. Also as AWDJ said check the performance tab to see how much cpu usage you have. I know sometime over the weekend, not sure exactly when but windows had an update to several programs, XP and Office 2003. If you have it on Auto Update those will run in the background and they are ram intensive
Just a thought......Again Nancy & I Enjoyed meeting you and your wife.....r
 
SoftJock Rick said:
Not always so, I'm afraid to say.

DirectSound, which is the audio interface part of DirectX, allows "hooking" into the interface, which does not permit other apps to get to it. The other app, can then hang on either an asynchronous or synchronous call to DirectSound.

Not bustin' on ya awdj, but that's the way the interface works.
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I can open multiple instances of Winamp set in DirectSound and they can all play.......? :sqconfused:
 
awdj said:
I can open multiple instances of Winamp set in DirectSound and they can all play.......? :sqconfused:
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some applications can exclusively call access to Direct sound awdj, I think that's what he means, while others can tag along, it is at programmers discretion.
 
If it's an option, then why would anyone ever call exclusively?!

I'm not doubting you, I'm just trying to figure it out.
 
If it's an option, then why would anyone ever call exclusively?!
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Couple reasons...

They might want to for reasons of taking full control so as no other app bothers them (not polite to do in this day and age).

They might not know they are, and also not release their references to the interface (just ignorance on the programmers part).


Lots of people are putting multi-media capability into apps that long before didn't have those caps. Many are folks that don't know the API interface very well, so they get it working, but then don't realize they need to release their references. They figure it works, so that magically everything gets cleaned up and de-referenced.

DirectX (and it's underlying interfaces, like DirectSound, DirectShow), are some of the more complex APIs in Windows. I work with them everyday, and the amount of time required to make sure everything is cleaned up, is more than the time it takes to get it to work properly :sqeek:

So, basically, it's hit or miss depending on the application, and you'll see more and more misbehaving apps, as more and more people put multi-media capabilities into their software...
 
I have everything completly disabled on my dj notebooks. There is a really good list of things to do to configure your pc to be a dj pc. I believe it came from the Virtual DJ forum. If someone has it please post it. I'm sure it will help free up your reasources.


I run Virtual DJ, PCDJ fx w/ Karaoke, KJ Pro, Winamp, Text Ticker, and Power Point all at the same time with never an issue in 1 year 5 to 6 nights a week on the same pc.
 
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