PE 3.0 Shuts down computer

I have PE 3.0 and when I set it to burn a dvd, it goes about rendering and then shuts down my computer completely. It worked great before and the only thing I have changed is to upgrade my RAM from 1gb to 2gb. Upgrading the RAM is not the problem. I cannot even capture video through my firewire card without it shutting everything down. Here are my computer specs:

INTEL 2.4 Ghz cpu
2 GB Ram (Crucial sticks)
Four SATA hard drives...one dedicated to storing video
ATI All In Wonder 128MB 9800 Series AGP video card
Windows XP Pro with SP2

When it would work, it took perhaps 2.5 - 3 hrs for the video to render and then burn the dvd. I understand however this is normal for it to take that long. I had to reformat my computer a few days ago and since then, I've had nothing but trouble. I have the same trouble with Sony Vegas. Oddly enough, it will work with Nero and it seems to ONLY work with Nero. I routinely clear the cache with crap cleaner. XP shows that I have 166GB's of free space left on my main hard drive....more than enough to do this.

Any suggestions?
MSTech

I had your same problem in several ways.

After talking to an Adobe tech, it appears that the DVD recorder drivers get corrupted over time by either other programs or by Window "updates".

The possible fix is at the Adobe site, Knowledgebase item, Tech Note 333162.

It is probably best to follow the suggestions in the order listed to identify the root cause for your case.

What worked for me, at least partially and enough to continue, is step 18 of that note which involved refreshing the Windows DVD driver list as explained. Basically, said corrupted list is erased and when the PC is rebooted it forces Windows to reinstall the original DVD drivers. Prior to this you must uninstall Premiere Elements.

Reinstall Premiere, restart PC, update on Adobe's site to PE 3.02 latest version (maybe V4 or higher by now).

At this moment I have no locks or crashes when preparing and burning to DVD PROVIDED I use the File> Export>DVD procedure once I am ready instead of clicking Burn DVD from the DVD workplace... I do not know why but the Burn DVD button causes a lock or crash or program termination whereas from the File > Export > DVD it works. No doubt a bug remains and hopefully a fix will eventually be found. Other than that, for now, PE3 is the best quality consumer DV editor and DVD preparer and burner I have run into. The DVD video discs look noticeably better than others on high quality large screen TV's.

Good luck.

Thanks for your reply Melachrino. After having tried so many things, I think I will go back to using PE 2.0. It seems that no matter what I try with PE 3.0, it wants to shut my computer down. There are times when it does work after having tried to burn a dvd a dozen times. I like PE 3.0 but Adobe has some bugs still to work out of it.

Thanks,
MSTech

I have the same kind of crashes when trying to burn by pressing the button on screen. I strongly doubt the explanation about the DVD drivers being corrupt as I can, on the same system, run Nero Vision (latest) and capture then burn to DVD. Likewise I can run Roxio Videowave, capture HD, edit, add music and burn to DVD.
In each case I can use either of my 2 DVD writers. I am thinking Adobe has some real shortcomings in that product (and this from a Creative Suite licensed user who loves PSCS3 and Bridge).

Actually, the driver explanation seems rather iffy to me too. But, I'm not a software engineer at Adobe so.....

Anyway, after trying to revert back to PE 2.0 and having essentially the same result, shutting down my computer, I re-installed PE 3.0. Determined to make this work, I tried a few more things. After reinstalling PE 3.0, I downloaded and installed the patch and then rebooted the system. Afterwards, I made sure my cache was emptied by using my very reliable crap cleaner, which I have come to love, and then looked into the Windows XP services running in the background. Another thing I did, and I think this was the most significant, I let PE 3.0 render the video from my MAIN Drive C. I was letting it render from another drive which I am using to store the video and for awhile it seemed to work. More often than not however, at least as of late, it resulted in the program crashing and my computer just instantly being shut down.

Now, it seems to work as it should. The only difference in the drives is that my primary is IDE and the other is SATA. Both are Seagate (Maxtor which was acquired by Seagate). So...knock on wood, it seems to have solved the problem!

Thanks for all of the suggestions.
MSTech