Audaity Software shutting my computer down

[njs21]

I plugged in a senheiser mic using USB cable and audio registers on vu meters on Audacity window, but I do not hear audio through my laptops speakers. Also when I click on record button it runs for 30 seconds and then it shuts my computer down. Why is this happening?

[kozikowski]

Do you know how large your hard drive is and how much room you have on it? Shutting down the computer is pretty serious and there's not a lot of things that can do that.

Laptop with Windows XP?

Koz

[njs21]

I am asking for my associate. It is XP professional and as far as drive space not sure how much. Would this be an issue that setting record device can solve?

[kozikowski]

<<<Would this be an issue that setting record device can solve?>>>

I think it's something that fixing your computer can solve. Audacity is a coal mine canary. It can point to problems you didn't know you had.

Audacity uses generous hardware memory and drive space (most production software packages fall into this category). You can go a long time with Excel Spreadsheets and Microsoft Word documents and never know that your hard drive is becoming unstable or you have a defective memory module.

Audacity needs both of those to work perfectly and if you have just the right error, blammo, the machine can go right in the dirt.

When was the last time you defragmented your hard drive -- assuming first of all that there is at least 20% free space available? Microsoft makes a very nice memory checker that can reveal hardware problems very well.

http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

This isn't anything a simple clicky or setting is going to solve.

Koz

[njs21]

Thanks i will pass this info along. We are trying to set this up to record simple voice overs small files. And export them to wave files to be e mailed and used for various projects. No multi track recordings no music etc.

[kozikowski]

If you've never had to do system diagnostics on your PC before, now is the time.

My Computer > C: > Properties.

If you have an 80BG hard drive, It shouldn't be much fuller than about 65GB. Then error check and defragment from that same window. If you do all that and the computer still crashes, then you may have hardware or memory issues.

Koz

[kozikowski]

Just so we're clear, the computer restarts, right? It's not just that Audacity vanishes. Those two are very different.

Koz

[njs21]

Computer restarts Audacity does not go away. According to what my associate told me he is able to record but only for 30 seconds. And the computer was crashing after it did start the record.

[kozikowski]

Your next message should say: "We checked the hard drive inside the machine." followed by a size and how much empty space you have.

If you're not sure how to do that, find someone more familiar with first level computer maintenance and show them these messages. If you don't, there's a chance you'll never get any further than this.

Koz

[njs21]

He has 23.5GB free space on drive. this should be more than enough space.