[Matthew Mosso]

i had the same problems. 3 mins wouldn’t render. and it has nothing to do with memory issues. i have 4gb. some people on this site had the same problem with 12gb.
here is how i fixed it.

STEP 1.
first open your project file. right click on each video click properties than click on the media tap.
if they are not the same format type open a blank prject file and render the clips that are different than your common format type.
my case was. my files were .m2t, and the format MPEG-2.
and i also had .Mov files in there.
so what i did was re render the .Mov clips to .M2t files.

STEP 2.
if you are using an external hard drive make sure it is plugged into the back on the pc, a usb that is connected to the motherboard. do not use on that is located on the front of the computer.

STEP 3.
Make sure your computer hard drive has at least 200+ GB free space/ i only had 145 GB free space and i moved all my raw footage to my external hard drive and now the pc hard drive has 349 GB free space.

that fixed my problem i just rendered a 13 min scence without any problems. hope this help everyone