laptop help needed.

[Twinspin]

Im looking at going into the VJ side of things on the setup. Ive borrowed some videos off my friend and i seem to be having some problems with my laptop crashing when i play videos through it or activate effects or even edit them. Its not doing it all the time though

The screen goes white and the window on the screen freezes which is resulting in a restart of Virtual DJ.

The video from the laptop is been outputted via the HDMI out on my laptop.
im assuming my Sony Vaio laptop should be more than powerful enough with a Intel Core i5 processor, 6 gig of ram, 1gb of Nvidia Independent Geforce 410m graphics.

The machine itself has already been optimised using one of the Virtual DJ Guides on the internet. All the drivers are the latest drivers. Ive been on the NVIDIA website and got the latest drivers as well.

anyone got any idea or any settings i could try.

Thanks again

John

[DJ James Lake]

Are you running the videos in a window, you need to extend the desktop in the control panel and then select your video card in VDJ as the video output.

There is also an application in the tools section called registry tool in VDJ downloads tools section of their website as there is a bug with certain Nvidia cards and it may need the tool running to sort it.

It may help, if not put a post up on VDJ forum they are very helpful.

[Twinspin]

Thanks James. I really appreciate your help. Ive got all that side of it working with the extend desktop and all that and got the video outputting on the screens as they should.

I intend to use SBDJ Scrolltext on as well visuals for songs i havent got the videos for. Ive been to help one of my VJ friends Sean Minns setup this afternoon and tested my machine with his monitors and rear view projection screens.

Last night i had it all out for about 3/4 hours running music videos through it and it crashed a couple of times within that time. Ill definetely try the registry tool recommended though.

If all still fails with that. I have got another Sony Vaio laptop that i use at home for personal use with a dual core AMD Athlon inside it, 3gb of Ram and a ATI Radeon Graphics card and see how it runs on that.

Thanks Again James

Have A Good Christmas

John

[Matty12]

This my sound silly but turn of your internet when your using VDJ or the video it worked for me, but you need to turn it of before opening anything!

[Twinspin]

Internet is all off on my gig machine Wireless adapter is disabled. Dont even have internet explorer on it or any browser.

thanks for the suggestion though

[DJ James Lake]

What version of VDJ are you using, is it a genuine version because VDJ 7.05 is very stable and your system is more than capable of running it.

[Twinspin]

Hi James. Its the latest version and a proper genuine copy of it. I bought it about 4 months ago when i got the MC6000. So i can get any updates or addons from the VDJ site thats needed.

http://a4.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/393566_10150420231855957_512570956_8809178_1993787 59_n.jpg

[Twinspin]

Right then Update. Ive been down to the hotel tonight to set everything up and im using one of my friends 32 inch LCD Screens in the middle of the truss . Up to now everything seems to be working alright. Ive tried the Music videos, Visualisations and the Scroll text and its all working alright.

I will have my other Vaio laptop with me tonight with an ATI Radeon inside it. So im more than covered in terms of backup. Will also have a music laptop running as well.

[tc1ooo]

Im looking at going into the VJ side of things on the setup. Ive borrowed some videos off my friend and i seem to be having some problems with my laptop crashing when i play videos through it or activate effects or even edit them. Its not doing it all the time though

The screen goes white and the window on the screen freezes which is resulting in a restart of Virtual DJ.

The video from the laptop is been outputted via the HDMI out on my laptop.
im assuming my Sony Vaio laptop should be more than powerful enough with a Intel Core i5 processor, 6 gig of ram, 1gb of Nvidia Independent Geforce 410m graphics.

The machine itself has already been optimised using one of the Virtual DJ Guides on the internet. All the drivers are the latest drivers. Ive been on the NVIDIA website and got the latest drivers as well.

anyone got any idea or any settings i could try.

Thanks again

John

What model vaio are you running it on? I think I've got the same one as you and I've been video dj'ing on it for 6 months with no problem.

[Twinspin]

Its a Sony Vaio VPCEJ1Z1E

Intel Core i5 processor, 6gb ram, 640gb hdd. 1gb of Nvidia Geforce 410m graphics, Blu-ray Rom drive.

The laptop has crashed twice tonight with the videos. Where ive had to reboot virtual dj but i did have a music laptop plugged in which was Peters.

I had problems listening through my headphones tonight with videos on my MC6000. Couldnt hear nothing out of them through the midi channels 1 and 4 were fine.

[Twinspin]

Just to add the laptop is running on Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit.

[tc1ooo]

Mine is a Vaio i5 with 64 bit windows, but a model or 2 below yours. It runs videos with no problem, so it must be a software problem somewhere.

[spin mobile disco]

The geforce 410m is not a great chipset infact other than power saving for the mobile market it is of the same 440x series that was in use 10 years or so ago. They used to overheat and create graphics hangs. Sounding very similar to what you are experiencing.
Best thing to check would be a driver update for the graphics card direct from www.nvidia.com also check soundcard driver at the same time due to the way laptops handle interrupts they may be interfering with each other. Sonys are normally pretty reliable whatever is under the hood so look for driver issues first but the ati graphics on laptops tend to be better all round.

[Twinspin]

Im running music videos through my other Vaio at the minute which has a ATI Radeon inside it. Got it running as i speak.

[DJ James Lake]

I know you said your laptop was optimised, but did you start with a fresh install on windows in the first place (and turn off all the sony rubbish thats installed)

[Twinspin]

I didnt do a fresh install. I restored to factory restore and then uninstalled everything from it. Including Vaio care and everything else sony related.

There isnt any programs running on it.... Other than the Denon Asio Driver, Virtual DJ 7 Pro and CC Cleaner thats all there is on. And on another partition i have my music on there. All the music videos i was running was on a western digital elements external hardisk with a power adapter

Wifi adapter disabled, no internet browsers installed, no games and other windows features that arent relevant as well. Checked the startup nothing running in there apart from the graphics and sound utility

[tc1ooo]

Maybe it's the external hardisk. Have you tried copying some videos to the laptop and running them from there?

[DazzyD]

At my Friday night gig, I'm using VDJ 7 to run HD music videos and I'm not having any problems although I will say my laptop gets quite warm. My laptop is a Compaq Presario CQ56 (the same specs as some HP models) with an AMD V140 chip running at 2.3GHz and backed up by 3Gb of RAM. It has ATI Mobility Radeon HD4250 on board graphics running on W7 Home Premium. It's quite a basic spec by today's standards so I'd have thought that if my machine can do it, it should be a walk in the park to your Vaio. It does sound like a driver issue but I'm not most computer-video knowledgeable person.

[Twinspin]

Ive had music videos running on my other Vaio for just over 3 hours and its not crashed once... The laptop with the ATI Radeon in.

[DJ James Lake]

Personally I would do a complete install, format the hard drive and start again at least that way you know you are running with a fresh system. I don't think the factory restore does quite the same thing. It may also be that you removed something crucial to the system when unistalling. From the specs it should easily run it without any optimising.

[Ryu]

Ive had music videos running on my other Vaio for just over 3 hours and its not crashed once... The laptop with the ATI Radeon in.

Some of the crashes could be down to the plug ins. The Scrolltext plug in you mentioned seems to work fine for me at home, when there is less demand on the laptop, but in a gig situ, it gets a little blocky. Sonique can be similar, especially if you try and get it to do too many things at once.

[DazzyD]

Some of the crashes could be down to the plug ins. The Scrolltext plug in you mentioned seems to work fine for me at home, when there is less demand on the laptop, but in a gig situ, it gets a little blocky. Sonique can be similar, especially if you try and get it to do too many things at once.

This could be a good point. Thinking back, when I started doing the vids, I had a problem with the graphics crashing once and that was to do with the Camera plug-in. I'd set the camera plug-in under the "use this plug-in for audio-only files" so that the camera would come on automatically when the videos ended. However, my laptop didn't like this and the graphics output crashed. Strangely, I've had no such problems starting the plug-in manually. :confused:

[Twinspin]

Hi Everyone i thought id come back on and share with you an update.

I tried running video through a VGA and still got the same problems of some video freezing / cutting out.

So ive decided to give Sony a call today and i had a word with their technical support. The first driver i installed i got it from the NVIDIA website and made sure it was the latest driver. So i told the engineer what actions i took to try and fix the problem.

Now their engineer said instead of getting the driver from NVIDIA's website. Go onto the Sony Vaio technical support website and download their latest NVIDIA driver. According to Sony they have worked with NVIDIA to create a modified driver for their laptops.

So ive followed the instructions given to me. I have tried running videos yet again on the Vaio and this time there hasnt been any sign of crashing after running it for just over three hours with SBDJ scrolltext running as well

At the moment id say im 70% satisfied. If i can run this for 6 hours round about the length of an average gig without problems. I will be fully satisfied.

[Richard Veal]

This is generally one of 2 things.

If your laptop is very high resolution you must run the VDJ in a window NOT full screen.
We have had this as a problem on an Alienware Laptop.

If that does not fix the issue - there is a little known conflict with windows 7 and a program called aero. It's what makes the transparent edges around your windows. Right click on the desktop click personalise and change the theme settings to basic. Aero is now disabled and should work without any more freezing or crashes.

You can thank me later!

[DazzyD]

This is generally one of 2 things.

If your laptop is very high resolution you must run the VDJ in a window NOT full screen.
We have had this as a problem on an Alienware Laptop.

If that does not fix the issue - there is a little known conflict with windows 7 and a program called aero. It's what makes the transparent edges around your windows. Right click on the desktop click personalise and change the theme settings to basic. Aero is now disabled and should work without any more freezing or crashes.

You can thank me later!

And I'll thank Richard now!! Thanks!! Good advice and it worked a treat!

Let me explain. Richard PM'd me this information a couple of weeks ago following a thread whereby I'd mentioned I'd experienced "window ghosting" whereby if you opened an Explorer (not IE!) window whilst using VDJ, sometimes when you try to close the window using the "X" in the top right corner, the window simply wouldn't close. Windows would think it has been closed and carry on working but the window would remain on the screen. This meant you couldn't activate the VDJ screen underneath the window and had to resort to closing the window with Task Manager. Sounds simple enough but if you do this whilst running VDJ, Windows also knocks out VDJ's video input meaning if you are running karaoke or videos, they will go off.

I've followed Richard's advice and turned off Windows Aero (which is actually Win-Vista and Win-7s "enhanced graphical experience" - it does a lot more than make the edges of windows transparent!! ;) ). I've now had a couple of weeks of intense trialling and a couple of gigs whereby this glitch hasn't happened now so things are looking good.

Richard, I had meant to thank you for the advice by PM but looks like I haven't done so so please accept this as a public thanks!! :)

[digga]

Only just come across this post (I've not been on here for quite a while). I've had similar problems in the past, and Aero is one of the main causes, especially on extended desktop.

One other thing that is worth checking is the format and codec used to rip video's with. There are many, many different video formats out there, and many audio codecs to go with them, but the best I've come across is MPEG-2 with 44KHz audio.

If you do come across any more crashes, it might be worth checking the video's format and codec :)

[Twinspin]

Had the laptop running again tonight doing videos at a wedding and the laptop has worked fine all night. No problems what so ever.

[SoundONE]

Personally I think it's a glitch with vdj, I to suspected it was the computer but now I am sure it's not as I have tried several different laptops all high specs, with nothing on them except the basic o/s and this always happens, the users who say it doesn't happen to them, probably are not playing as many videos as you and I and are doing say a few here and there, in between audio tracks.

I suspect your problem can be fixed by not restarting vdj, but by pressing control - alt - delete, let the screen pop up then hit cancle, now vdj will probably respond again, but you will have a white screen, go into config->video-> and check and uncheck video output (activate) you may need to ok that screen and then go back and check, uncheck and check again. The music will keep playing normally and the video will then come back. So you only have a white screen for a few moments if you notice quickly enough, we always have a monitor so we always no whats displayed to the audience.

You should be able to do a 4-5 hour video gig without restarting vdj but you will most likely have to do the above 1 or several times.

Hopefully the next version of VDJ fixes this.

If anyone has a laptop that they are able to do a 4-5 hour none stop video gig with and have done this more than a couple of times, I would be very interested to know the make model and spec.

Give this method a try twinspin let me know how you get on.

[djdj]

Use video for all my show now (well 95%) and have no issue with VJ at all.
I run both a OOVJ & OODJ neither lets me down!

[Craig - Dragon Discos]

I use a sony Vaio (not sure of the model off the top of my head as it was a custom build) i know it's an i7 processor and has 1gb dedicated video memory. Runs 100% video gigs for 5-6 hours at a time with no problems. The only slight issue is occasionally the video preview window (but not the output video or audio) will freeze for 15 seconds when a track is loaded onto the other deck. When I do a Video disco, I do just that, every track played is a video

[SoundONE]

Thanks Craig

[SoundONE]

Been testing an Acer aspire 5733 8gb ram no problems, had it playing videos for over 12 hours solid on auto. Seems strange other higher spec laptops have fallen over, but this certainly does the job.