HELP WITH SOFTWARE

[Photorob]

I have spent about 4 hours with Dell tonight with a problem with my Inspiron 5150 and raw files. This is a almost new pentium 4 computer with a full 1GH of ram and 300+mhz processer that I am having the problem with. It has Windows XP as the software.Both with Breezebrowser and Canon Digital Pro software when I try to batch convert my RAW files into TIFF files the system will do about 10 -20 files and then it goes dead and I have to re-boot the entire sytem. The technical support people are tying to suggest this is a software compatability problem and even though the sytem is under warranty I am concerned about what to do next. I have not had this problem in the past and am convinced it must be a problem with the computer but would really like to know if any on this forum have ever run into simular problems with either of these software programs in the past.

[Jesper]

This is just a guess, but....:

Those RAW conversion programs are very CPU- and memory-intensive. On the support forums of CaptureOne (another RAW conversion program), the author of the program recommends testing the reliability of the RAM in your computer with the following test program: memtest (http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=350)

[robertwgross]

Those RAW conversion programs are very CPU- and memory-intensive.

Right, and the original posters CPU specs don't sound right. Not 300+ MHz, surely!

---Bob Gross---

[Photorob]

Thank for the advice. And yes Robert the specs were wrong. I did this from memory because my system was in the middle of a full system test which took 4 hours and I could not access the actual specs. The CPU is 3.06 GHZ and it has 828MHZ and it has 1 G of RAM. I wanted some advice before I call Dell today. I hope I do not have to process 10 files at a time in the future to avoid my sytem shutting down. I do not want to buy a different computer.

[robertwgross]

The CPU is 3.06 GHZ and it has 828MHZ and it has 1 G of RAM. ... I hope I do not have to process 10 files at a time in the future to avoid my sytem shutting down.

I'm still not sure about the CPU spec, but it least it sounds like a modern machine. Mine is a bit slower than that, and late last night I had it convert 200 RAW files to TIF in one pass. That took about 50 minutes.

---Bob Gross---

[Photorob]

This is not a software problem. I downloaded the memory test and my computer went dead twice trying to check the memory. Luckily am still in warranty. I suspect a short in electrical system. Appreciate everyones help.

[Photorob]

This is not a software problem. I downloaded the memory test and my computer went dead twice trying to check the memory. Luckily am still in warranty. I suspect a short in electrical system. Appreciate everyones help.

[evilenglishman]

i would say that it is a software problem. Its extremely doubtful this is a hardware problem with your computer.

what actually happens? does it just freeze?

if i were you i would look at your event viewer to see if there are any errors listed;

start/settings/control panel/ admin tools/event viewer. Look at the application and system tabs to see if any errors are happening at the time of the freeze.

[Photorob]

Nothing in event viewer. Spent another hour with Dell today and they are thankfully going to come to house and replace memory, power switch, motherboard, and processer. Hopefully I will soon be able to batch process raw again. :)

[Jon]

If it died trying to do a memory test, that's where to look first. The other place to look is at internal temperatures. It may be overheating with that compute-intensive conversion.