Crash with Video Studio Pro X7 and Windows 8.1

[clowesga]

I just got a new 64-bit Windows 8.1 HP desktop with sufficient processor power, RAM and disk space to handle HD video editing. I installed the trial version of Video Studio Pro X7 about two hours ago and so far have experienced five system crashes. The program seems to be running fine and then suddenly the screen goes black, the monitor says it's going to sleep, and eventually the Start screen returns. There are no error messages when the system crashes and there are no messages when I restart Video Studio Pro X7. There's no consistent action that I take before the crash - sometimes I'm moving the cursor across a video timeline and the crash occurs; at other times, I'm just figuring out what to do next, and it still crashes. The crashes seem unrelated to any specific activity or video file.
I've already had windows crash on me while just playing a DVD with another program and so this may be a Windows 8.1 problem. However, I wondered if anyone else had been unlucky enough to have a similar problem.
Geo

[skier-hughes]

I run it on win 8.1 without problems.
As you've had other crashes, it does point towards another error.
I'd start by checking your graphics driver (from the manufacturer, not windows update) and directx are up to date.
Also, you say your specs are good enough, but you haven't listed them in your profile, so we can't confirm or deny this.

[Ken Berry]

I can only agree with skier-hughes and say that I too run VS X7 with Win 8.1 with nary a hint of a problem. So try his suggestions...

[clowesga]

Thanks for the suggestions. I determined the PC has DirectX 11, so that is up-to-date. I found the latest driver (5-26-14) for the NVIDIA GeForce GT 640 GPU and installed that. The PC has a 3TB drive, RAM in the double digits, and an Intel i7-4820K 3.7 GHz CPU, so resources shouldn't be a problem. However, VSP X7 still crashed after about 5 minutes. This time, the PC didn't even reboot but just stayed in black screen until I turned off the power.
It may be the OS and so I'll report back when I've done a full System Recovery.

[skier-hughes]

Your system is indeed good enough
Have you installed any other video editing apps that may be interfering?

[clowesga]

The PC came with Cyber Link DVD player. However, when I uninstalled that program, the crashes still occurred.

I did a full System Recovery and the crashes still occurred. HP suggested the problem could be the video card. I contacted NVIDIA through Online Chat and they suggested running a Video Card Stability Test. Long story short: I first ran a program called FurMark, which showed rapid heating of the GPU. I didn't run it very long (less than a minute).

I subsequently ran the Video Card Stability Test program from the web site of the Freestone Group. I ran its benchmark program for only two minutes or so before the system crashed. Subsequent runs crashed the system in less than a minute.

This points to a problem with my graphics board. I'm getting a replacement. I'll report back when I get that installed.

[skier-hughes]

Thanks for the update, at least (let's hope) we are getting somewhere.
Editing apps make more use of the gpu these days.

[clowesga]

I installed a replacement graphics board last night. I noted that the fan on the original board had become detached and so the chip must have overheated pretty quickly when called on to handle any continuous video processing. I ran tests on the new board last night and tonight and couldn't get the system to crash again, either with the test programs or with Video Studio Pro 7X.
Problem solved, and the good thing is that the crashes had nothing to do with Windows 8.1 or Video Studio Pro X7.