I have been having issues with dropped frames and A/V sync. Hardware: Motherboard M7NCG 400 AMD XP @ 2.0 Ghz AIW VE (PCI) 80GB 7200 2mb HDD 256 RAM @ 200mhz edit: actually 512 I have captured using all versions of Vdub including v1.6.4 and sync versions. On average I will drop around 300-700 frames an hour using PicVideo's MJPEG codec. CPU usage will never go above 15%. The VT adjust number in Vdub will sometimes endup at numbers in the tens of thousands. I do not know what a normal system will produce, but I'm assuming that should not happen. With audio not being captured,I average around 14 frames dropped an hour. I assume this is normal, even though I wish I could get it lower. During playback in media player I will also get hicups during playback in which my system will temporary freeze and upon unfreezing, audio sync will be way off. (Reclock seems to do nothing) The onboard chip is a Realtek ALC650/655 . I have not found any issues with this chipset on any forums/google, but this is my second M7NCG and both have had the exact same problems. I have performed numerous formats and driver combos. The real questions: 1. Does my diagnosis seem correct to you? 2. Are there any tests I can run to see if I'm right? 3. I will probably get a new sound card this weekend, so I will need some recomendations. The system is going into a custom HTPC case, so audigys and the like are out of the question. I just want a small 2 channel card that has a stable clock rate. thanks for reading, somail

thanks for the reply. I actually have 512 of RAM. Sorry about that. Audio is uncompressed PCM. Resolution is 640x480. Other codecs give me the same result, but picvideo's codec is the only one that I can capture at 640x480 and not drop frames every other second. It also seems to minimize sync loss for some reason. I havn't tried capturing at a higher res since I replaced the HDD, so I'll see if I can go higher. I originally had an old 5400RPM drive. I should probably mention that the amount of frames being dopped is the same amount for any resolution under 640x480. I should also mention that my onboard sound shares an IRQ with my onboard USB, but I do not really think that is causing me problems. Never thought about windows needing to use the HDD while I'm capturing. I'm not up for buying a second HDD right now. First I just want to get to make sure I solve the big problems first. :)

...leads me to believe the HD isn't able to keep up.... An IDE bus runs at the speed of the slowest device. If there's a CD or DVD drive on the same bus, this could be the limiting factor.

Thanks for the replys. The motherboard is a biostar M7NCG 400 (Nforce 2). Anyways I have all updated drivers installed, except for Nvidia's IDE drivers. The reason bring is that they simply do not work and any performance gain is non-existent. But UDMA is on, I double check once a week, since windows loves to enable PIO when it reads burned DVD's. Also the HDD and DVDrom are on different controllers. Last night I ordered a Seagate 200gb 7200 drive so hopefully in a week I will know if my current HDD is to blame. I'll try a compressed audio capture at 720x480 and see what happens. thanks

Tried the IDE drivers again, and still no go. The main problem is that the drivers fail to run my drives in UDMA mode. They will say UDMA enabled and as the current mode; problem is that the drives are really in PIO mode. I have confirmed this many times with many different programs. Tried compressing audio, but I dropped alot of frames pretty quickly about 300 in the first few minutes. CPU usage was around 25%-30%, while I was using Lame @ 128bit.

hmmm... Thats the first I've ever heard about cables effecting UDMA modes. But it shouldn't matter since when I use the stock microsoft IDE drivers I am in UDMA 5.

Okay it was a very productive weekend. After a bunch of messing around I finally got virtualVcr working. With the new hardrive and virtualVcr I drop 4 frames in two hours. In virtualdub I drop around 45 frames with the new drive, so I think virtualdub is just can't keep up with my unstable audio clock. thanks for all your help guys.