Hello Mark , 

Sorry to hear you are having issues.

Sometimes this is a tricky issue to get a handle on .

Some reasons you can get computer freeze when converting video is .

1 - Overheating in your case are all vents processor heatsink power supply clear from dust good air flow inside case.

2 - Overstressed Power Supply might need one with more watts .

3 - Some converters Max out CPU usage leading to a freeze . ( run a cpu meter on top of screen )

4 - also I have my power settings set to NEVER Monitor and sleep mode .

      Link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28aeUeFokL8

      Link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E8gWdyBvbw

      Link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRm3gehtofM

5 - Link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-mu2xBociw

What programs are you using to cause this ?

Making all the dreams I do I am converting video daily and find this converter best

one to use to date Video Producer link : https://www.winxdvd.com/help/how-to-use-videoproc.htm

it has a Free trial .

You have to play with the setting to get it just right .

AzDude
Stardock Community Assistant

Hi Az, thanks for your reply.  I will respond to your thought by number, okay.

1.  My case has plenty of ventilation and overheating is probably not the culprit

2.  I have a 1200 watt power supply and I never seem to tax it, being it has ample power.  Some say 1200w is overkill, but I feel the more watts the better when running a reasonably powerful PC.

3.  I run a CPU meter from IOBit and it never seemed maxed out at any time I was converting videos.  The videos I'm converting are anything from just a few minutes up to an hour or so, but the freeze up can occur on any sized video at any given time.  In some cases it's just a few moments, other times it can freeze up with just 5% to go.

4.  I will alter my power settings to be the same.  I usually do that early in Windows setup, but this time I was so busy reinstalling all my programs and researching some others.

5.  I recently had the dreaded BSOD and nothing I did would reset Windows to start normally.  I tried Startup Repair; starting in Safe Mode to undo what I thought may have crashed my PC; using CMD as Administrator to run sfc /scannow, and even resetting Windows, all to no avail.  Even an Acronis backup would not take.... I got a message saying that Acronis could not perform a restore operation on the drive selected.  In the end I just wiped the drive and reinstalled Windows from scratch.

As for with converter, well I tried several from Any Video Converter; Freemake Video Converter; Wondersoft Video Converter to Handbrake.  All did the same thing, Windows froze up and I had to do a forced reboot.  I did do a Google search and didn't find a lot to help with my issue.  One suggestion may have helped but I'm not too sure as yet if it worked. 

One person suggested to make the output folder on a different drive to the input files as there may be a conflict if there was not enough free space on the drive, and being that the output folder was on the same 120Gb drive as the input folder, it very well may have been the cause.  Once I moved the output folder to a different drive I tried again to convert a couple of files.  One was only 4 minutes long and the other was 1 hour 22 minutes.  Neither froze up and each conversion completed successfully.

It is probably too early to tell because the freeze ups were quite random, but here's hoping it is fixed.  I purchased Ashampoo's video converter in the hope it'd resolve the issue, and it performed those final conversions without a hitch, and it's very easy to use, but I'm not counting any chickens just yet.

Video Card and driver please?

If its not solved you may want to check:

1) PC OS may have some error tracking systems (like Windows Event Viewer) which may have information on what caused it.

2) Get a hardware monitor (this is a software program which provides info about hardware state) and observe GPU (and maybe CPU but GPU is the more likely culprit) temperature.

Card is an ASUS Radeon RX570-04g- Gaming

Drivers are up to date with 26.20.15011.10003.

It's the same video card I had in the AMD Ryzen 1700X build and there were never any issues with video converting in that setup.  I now have the more powerful AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2920X, so I wouldn't imagine it's that.  I do have a CPU/RAM monitor on the desktop and neither seemed to be stressed at any time.  The CPU usually runs well below 10% during conversions, sometimes flexing up to 15% - 20% for brief moments.

 I have a hardware monitor installed [Rainmeter] and no overheating has been detected thus far.  As stated earlier, the case is well ventilated, so I don't think overheating is the issue.  I've also checked the hardware monitor in the BOIS and all readings appear to be within normal ranges.

I've not tested it today as yet, but later I will check more thoroughly to see if changing the output folder to another drive has resolved the issue.  When I Googled the issue one person suggested that converting videos generally requires 50Gb of free space and that having both input and output folders on a small drive [in my case a 120Gb SSD] can cause freeze-ups.  He recommended moving the output folder to a different drive with ample space, which I have done.  Hopefully, he's right and that's the solution.

Try excluding the converter proggy from being monitored by av proggy....😀

Didn't think of that, will do it shortly.  I tried a couple of conversions last night and both completed without issue, so maybe separating the input and output folders did the trick; however, I cannot say for sure if I've resolved the issue due to its random occurrences.  It may still arise but I hope not.

Found that as a solution in the past, myself...

 So far so good.... touch wood.  Thing is, yesterday I had a freeze up during an IOBit Malware Fighter scan, yup, right out of the blue.  I've used it in the past without issue, but yesterday it pushed up the CPU cycles and temperature to higher levels than I'd ever seen.   I've since uninstalled it and now use Ashampoo's Antivirus that I purchased last night.  It doesn't seem to be affecting the CPU like its IOBit counterpart, so I'll stick with it and see how things go.

Bloody AV is more trouble that it's worth if you ask me. Especially if you pay for it. The number of times I've heard of problems caused by it blocking this, that or the other or interfering here and there... I have what came with Windows 10 but turned off via User Policy settings or whatever it's called but even then it's impossible to completely turn off, which might be a good thing I guess. The point is that it doesn't interfere. This is the solution I've gone with and I expect a backlash (and criticism of Defender, which is unwarranted also IMHO) but at least I can rule it out when I have computer trouble. I know enough of what to avoid and if I choose to play around with suspicious files I can use a one-off scan to check it. Been a long time since I encountered any genuine malware though. And I have been a victim in the past; by my own stupid mistakes. And the other security software claims made by these companies are half-truths at best; usually piggy-backing on what Windows offers anyway.

• Block all advertising when browsing the Web, except where you wish to support a particular site. Most scams are delivered via ads, especially by Google's top listings.
• Keep up to date. Your latest version browser should be able to avoid drive-by malware. I've certainly never encountered any.
• Keep your firewall on.
• Don't be an idiot.

I've had a couple of AVs give me trouble over the years, Norton being one of them, but this Ashampoo one is light on resources, with great real-time protection and quietly does what's needed in the background.  For mine it was well worth the 25 bucks.... unlike that IOBit AV, which was a resource hog on my new machine.

I always block ALL advertising regardless, and when sites request/demand I turn off my adblocker I simply turn off the site.  My browser [Firefox] is always up to date and I've not encountered drive-by malware or any other kind, either.

As for Firewall, it is always on, as is Windows Defender.  Yup, I'm peretty well covered.

About AV: I've  bought a few of them over the years and every single one gave me trouble(s). Pretty sure Norton gave me an ulcer. And I can't say for sure that any of them saved the day. Stopped using external AVs, and decided to trust Microsoft's built in defender some years back, and lo and behold, no trouble ever since.

Yeah, I've had issues with AVs in the past and I wasn't going to purchase Ashampoo's AV until I had tested it a while.  It behaved well during testing and the purchased version has lived up to expectation... it works in the baqckground and does not slow things down when I'm doing stuff.  That was what was wrong with the IOBit freebie, it truly was a resource hog and caused a couple of freeze ups after a recent update.  That's when I ditched it.

As for Norton, I think it gave most folks ulcers.... just ask Jafo.  It broke something in his machine and not a lot worked properly until it was gone.  I still use Windows Defender as well, being it's all tied in with Windows Security Centre and Firewall, etc.

It killed the Windows BITS service....so no Windows updates..... essentially I had to reinstall XP service pack 1....and 2... in entirety [and remove Norton, wasting the major part of a year's sub].

That was then...this is now...and Norton is allegedly better...but I will never know...

Moved on to Bitdefender ...then they were tardy catching up with Win 7 ...so I wasted yet another most of sub....and went to Kaspersky, where I remain.

Don't assume Defender will give you no issues because it is MS....it has in the past...and will surely again.  [they couldn't even get Edge to work properly on their own OS...initially]...

I thought it was BITS but wasn't 100% sure so just said it broke stuff.  I had Norton issues around that time as well, with it reporting so many false positives, hogging resources and its firewall blocking just about everything, trusted sites as well, including WC. 

Luckily, I hadn't paid for a sub because it came 'free' with the mobo.... I use the term free  somewhat loosely there, it was never free of frustrating issues, was it!  And I will never know if Norton is any better these days, either.... once bitten, twice ain't gonna happen.

I was never too sure about Kaspersky, given Russian reputations during that time, and even now, so I stayed with Avast free for quite a time and only had one issue, but then it changed hands and I moved on to BitDefender until recently.  Thing is, I still have 11 months remaining on a BitDefender sub and likely will never use it.  I don't know how I even ended up with that sub, I certainly didn't order or pay for it.  HMMM???

As for Windows Defender, I've not ever had an issue with it, either, but it has been said that it doesn't always catch various nasties so I invested 25 bucks on Ashampoo's AV, which thus far has done all that was advertised and has been issue free.  Now many would say that 25 bucks isn't a lot for a full-blown AV program, so may question how good it is, but Ashampoo does a lot of great software at very competitive prices.  I have several of their apps and, for mine, they perform equally as well or better than more expensive alternatives.

And Edge, I'm still not convinced, even after the update using the Chrome engine.  I tried it but still prefer Firefox.