Member Avatar for thinkunity

i am trying to run a live audio/video broadcast from my computer, i am using a external (creative sound blaster) audio card and an external (web tv) input device, both are usb. about 1 minute in to broadcasting my cpu max's out at 100% and it don't seem right. i just redid my computer so it is at tip top condition and has no viruses and or spy/ad ware on it. can anyone suggest anything that would give more resorce's to my cpu for broadcasting.

my system is:

dell inspiron 1100
windows xp
celeron(r) cpu 2.40 GHz
512 MB of ram

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Given the spec in the thread (Dell Inspiron 1100, Windows XP, Celeron 2.40GHz, 512MB RAM, an external USB Creative sound card and a USB “WebTV” capture device) and the symptom — CPU climbs to 100% about a minute into a live AV broadcast — the two most likely causes are: (A) real‑time software encoding starving the CPU, or (B) high interrupt/DPC activity from USB/driver interaction. The checks suggested earlier by , and are sensible — the items below focus on how to prove which of those two is happening and on targeted fixes.

Isolate the source first: run Process Explorer to watch per‑process CPU and the System process’ Interrupts/DPC activity (Process Explorer is designed for this level of troubleshooting). If “System Interrupts” / DPC time is high and CPU usage is dominated by kernel time, that points to hardware/driver/USB activity rather than the encoder itself. If the encoder process is the clear top consumer, the issue is pure encoding load. (learn.microsoft.com)

A short, repeatable workflow:

  1. Reproduce the problem while logging CPU and Interrupt/DPC counters with Performance Monitor (Processor: %ProcessorTime, %Interrupt Time, %DPC Time and Process: %Processor Time).
  2. If interrupts/DPCs are high, test by unplugging the capture or audio device and/or moving them to a different physical USB root hub (laptops often share one controller; hubs/devices share bandwidth). Also try disabling USB selective suspend while testing.
  3. If encoder CPU is the problem, try recording to disk only (no network) to separate network overhead, then switch the encoder to a much faster preset / lower resolution / lower frame rate or use hardware offload if available. (learn.microsoft.com)

Practical fixes to consider (in order of cost/effort): move one device to a different USB controller or a PCI/PCMCIA USB card; update chipset/USB host‑controller drivers and the capture device driver; use a capture card with onboard encoding or a GPU/QuickSync/NVENC hardware encoder to offload CPU; or use a second machine for encoding. If interrupts/DPCs are the culprit, replacing the faulty USB device or changing ports usually fixes it. For reference on hardware encoders and offload options, see the NVENC overview. (en.wikipedia.org)

This approach narrows whether the problem is driver/USB interrupts or purely CPU encoding load and points to low‑risk, testable changes before any hardware purchase.

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Member Avatar for qt 3.14159

The first thing to check is to make sure you have all the correct drivers installed especially the motherboard drivers and the video drivers. Especially since you just re-did your computer. If it turns out that isn't the problem, next you should probably start checking for viruses/malware even though you don't think you have any, a computer can get infected so fast that you may already have some problems. If you've done that, and you're still having problems, you should probably check your processes tab on the task manager and try to see which particular process is eating up your cpu usage. It might give you a good clue how to progress from there.

Good Luck.
-Erin

Member Avatar for abbasmj

Download stinger.exe from Mcafee's website and remove/delete any viruses it finds. Disable all of the startup programs using the MS Config Utility. Also try using a spyware removal tool such as ADAWARE or SPYBOT

Member Avatar for thinkunity

i do a virus scan and spy/ad ware check at least once a day.

and the processes are all normal.

Member Avatar for thinkunity

msconfig is nothing new to me. i desable all start up files once a week. but the only ones that end up comming back are aol and well thats it?

Member Avatar for antioed

A live audio/video webcast is going to require a pretty fast bit of pipe on your internet connection and plenty of memory on your system. Are you running a firewall? What are you using to broadcast the feed and have you tried cutting down the bitrate? What kind of internet connection do you have?

I think your processor is ok and 512MB RAM should be sufficient for memory.

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