PPT2002 - intermittant 'freezes'

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bruce Williamson
  • Start date Start date
B

Bruce Williamson

Hi, I'm running PPT2002 on two identical, new Dell laptops with WinXP. We're
experiencing random lockups during (relatively simple) PPT presentations,
with the laptop connected to a projector. Res is set at 800x600, 60 hrz.
I've experimented with hw acceleration adjustments with no improvement. Any
ideas would be appreciated & thanks!
 
Unfortunately, situations such as this have less to do with PowerPoint and
more to do with the OS, other installed apps, the video drivers, codecs
installed etc.

The first thing you can do is make sure only PowerPoint is running (no other
apps).
Second, check what 'behind-the-scenes' apps are running (check the lower
right bar by the system clock and see what each of those icons relate to)
Third, check your video drivers are up-to-date
Forth, run a hard drive defrag
You should also check to be sure you have all of the windows updates and
office XP updates installed.
Beyond that, run Norton utilities or Fix Windows Pro to discover any
registry problems, bad shortcuts, etc.

Best of luck, as this is one of the most frustrating things out there -
keeping a computer well tuned.

--
Best Regards,
Troy Chollar
==============================
TLC Creative Services
www.tlccreative.com
(e-mail address removed)
==============================
 
Well the good news is, you have a very good graphics card in your laptops (I
run the 64 meg version in 2 of my showsite computers). The bad news is that
it eliminates the potential solution I had. But here is the info anyways.
When you look at a slideshow on your laptop only, the slideshow receives all
of your video ram (in this case 32 megs). When you hook up your computer to
a projector and view both on the laptop and the projector, each is
projecting the slideshow with 1/2 of your video ram (in this case 16 megs
each - which should be plenty for all but the largest or most animated
presentations).

There are two types of graphics cards. One is dedicated video memory (which
your is) and the other is shared video memory. Stay away from shared video
memory and projectors, it a combination for disaster. But again, you do not
have this as a potential issue.

Because you can go through the slideshow on the laptop with no problems and
you have a good graphics card there are a few things you can check.
1. Make sure both computers are set to the same resolution. Control
anel -- Displays -- Settings tab -- Screen Resolution.
2. What is the resolution of the projector (either 800x600 or 1024x768). Set
your computer resolution to match the projector. This eliminates the need
for the projector to re-res your input.
3. Run slide show...
If still has problems, try this:
4. Toggle your display so only the projector displays the slideshow (laptop
monitor = black). This means all 32 megs of video memory are being given to
the projector.
5. Run slideshow...

Let me know the results.

Best Regards,
Troy Chollar
==============================
TLC Creative Services
www.tlccreative.com
(e-mail address removed)
==============================


----- Original Message -----
From: "Bruce Williamson" <[email protected]>
To: "'Troy'" <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, October 27, 2003 1:56 PM
Subject: RE: PPT2002 - intermittant 'freezes'

Hi Troy,
First off, thanks for your emails, man, I really appreciate the help.

Yes, I can run presentations on the laptops when not connected to the
projectors & I cannot get them to freeze - they run fine. I noticed that
(when I have the task mgr open) cpu utilization frequently spikes to
40-100% when new pages or new bullets within pages are presented. The
utilization doesn't spike going backwards thru pages.

Here's the other info:
Chip type: Mobility Radeon 9000 (LF)
DAC type: Internal DAC(350mhz)
Memory size: 32 MB

Again, thanks very much for any insights you may have! I'm going to
check for a different, newer video driver.
Very best regards,
- Bruce

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bruce Williamson
Lewis & Clark Law School
503-768-6645
(e-mail address removed)


-----Original Message-----
From: Troy [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, October 27, 2003 12:47 PM
To: Bruce Williamson
Subject: Re: PPT2002 - intermittant 'freezes'


Hello Bruce,

Just as a test, can you run through the presentations on each computer
okay when it is not connected to the projector?

What is the graphics chip in the laptop?
Control Panel -- Displays -- Settings tab -- Advanced button --
Adaptor tab -- Adaptor Type =? AND Memory (down lower on same dialog)
=?

Best Regards,
Troy Chollar
==============================
TLC Creative Services
www.tlccreative.com
760-639-1853 office
760-806-1853 fax
760-521-7401 cell
(e-mail address removed)
==============================


----- Original Message -----
From: "Bruce Williamson" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, October 27, 2003 11:35 AM
Subject: Re: PPT2002 - intermittant 'freezes'

Thanks for the ideas, Troy. Everything looks ok as you describe but
I'll check to see if any newer video drivers are available. Also, can
there be an issue with the projector the laptop is hooked up to?
- Bruce
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