[MPlayer-users] Things (artifacts?) appearing in output and input - Help!

[rcooley]

On Sun, 19 Oct 2003 22:42:22 -0700
AthlonRob <AthlonRob at axpr.net> wrote:

> I rebuilt the system almost from scratch, and am still getting
> identical behavior.  We're talking bad video and only bad video.  *NO*
> other symptoms on the system of *anything* out of the ordinary.

> It passed memtest86 3.0, as well as older versions in the past.
I wouldn't trust memtest86 for anything.

> The system usually crunches SETI at Home without any problems.  No seg
> faults, nothing.
It's quite possible to have a processor with more subtle problems than
regular faults...  Maybe it only fails on MMX/SSE instructions.

> Mencoder corrupts video before crashing.
If you are having a problem with encoding (eg. when you aren't
outputting video) that completely rules out your videocard.

> The way I see it, the only hardware in common with all these inputs
> and outputs is the motherboard, the CPU, the RAM, and the power
> supply.  I think I can safely rule out the last as the cause.  The CPU
> cruches SETI at home without any problems and constantly compiles this,
> that, or the other thing.  The RAM passed memtest.
Rather unlike the power supply would do this, but I'd check the voltages
being reported anyhow.

 
> The motherboard (which includes an integrated video chip) could be
> going out, but wouldn't I be seeing different symptoms?  Is there
> something that video (and only video - the audio remains uncorrupted)
> touches, be it being encoded (no display at all) or viewied (with
> display) that nothing else touches?
Just because the *symptom* you are seeing is only appearing in video,
doesn't mean it is specific to video.
However, integrated video chips do regularly die, so that may likely be
the cause of your problem.  I suggest you try very hard to fix your
mencoder problem...  If memcoder chrashes are just a software problem,
then you just need a new videocard.

> I'm stumped and don't know where else to look for help.  :-(
Maybe some of the thousands of hardware forums on the www?  I used to
lurk around computing.net, but that's not an endorsement.