Hey everyone,

I've been having a problem for well over a year with my media players freezing when I play movies (DVD or otherwise). I use both WMP and VLC and have installed proper codecs. A while ago, I decided to reinstall windows to resolve this and some speed issues I was having, but when I began to use XP again, the problem remained. I've also individually reinstalled VLC multiple times without any progress. I finally resolved to go into the services file and kill all unnecessary windows processes. After doing this and booting up, I was only using 60MB of RAM (out of 512). I tried playing movies again and still had the problem. The only thing I can think of is that WMP and VLC have issues with HyperThreading, which I've heard is possible with some programs.

If anyone has any ideas, please let me know.

As a sidenote, this problem does not occur in any Linux distribution I've used on my comp on the same files.

Thanks!

comp specs:
Pentium 4 with HT @ 3.0 GHz
512MB RAM
128MB ATI MOBILITY RADEON 9600
running Windows XP SP2 Professional

I'm no expert, but I had similar problems... Try reinstalling your video card drivers. That cleared up issues for me.

No success. I unistalled and then reinstalled my video drivers, but the same thing happened. I even messed around with my video RAM a little (though I'm not sure why that would've made a difference anyway) and that did nothing to solve the problem. Thanks for the idea though, I hadn't thought of that.

-Did you overclock your system?

-What processor are you running?

No, my system is still running at factory defaults. I'm running a P4 with HT @ 3.0GHz.

Try putting in a different video card, and see if the video still lags then.

Got a make and model on that notebook?

Sorry if I was unclear. I have a notebook. It is an HP Pavilion zv5240us.

the reason I ask is that this problem was/is very common with the ati mobility 9600 gpu with 128mb in some other models (not sure of yours).

But, in every case I have seen this (dozens, including my own laptop), a bios update corrected the issue -- had something to do with how the bios was interacting with the ati gpu.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/previou...item=ob-30947-1

The above page links to the bios updates for that machine...in particular, f25 links to a graphics issue, though not specifically yours.

I would update to the most recent (f45) and see if that corrects the issue.

Ok, so I flashed the BIOS (which was surprisingly easy, considering how many people have told me never to do it) and it seems as though things are working much better! WMP freezes when I move the panel, but it DOES play, which it didn't before. VLC seems to work without a hitch. I don't know if there's anything I can do about WMP, but I'm very happy with how my comp's working now. Thanks!

One thing I discovered in my travails with the ati 9600 mobility glitch was that the multitude of crashes sometimes damaged critical wmp files...installing over itself had no effect.

Try the procedures outlined here:

http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/Fixing-Windows-Media-Player-t101331.html

it worked some of the time

Ok, so after following those steps, I had no improvement in WMP. In addition, while right after I flashed my BIOS earlier, I had an improvement in VLC, it's back to freezing even if I don't move the panel. I'm starting to think my computer's possessed... Any new ideas would be awesome.

Another random thing. Entering safemode in my computer is almost impossible. I hit the F8 key from as soon as I hit the power to turn it on until it began to boot XP with no results. The only thing I can do is go into the BIOS and boot from LAN. I got lucky (kind of) when I followed the steps in the link above because I got an error message randomly that said XP could not start up normally and I entered safe mode via that. Can anyone think of any ideas why I couldn't get it in safe mode by pressing F8? All the other F keys work. thanks.

One final thing.. I might have been wrong about my video card. I looked on HP's site and it said my video card was an ATI MOBILITY RADEON 9000 IGP. I could've sworn it was a 9600, but I might be mistaken. I'm not sure how to find out for sure.

This post has been edited by jmrother: Apr 13 2006, 10:01 PM

turn down video acceleration

Ok, did that. There is an improvement. It'll play decently if I don't touch it or do anything else with my computer. I tried to start up firefox during playing though and it froze right up. I guess it's usable, but certainly not ideal. I'm just amazed that my video card can't handle something as simple as this... for 1600$ you'd think you could get a decent video card...

The card itself is very decent my friend, more powerfull than mine. There's just an incompatibility somewhere we have to find.