Now I'm not entirely sure that Winamp is causing the problem. I only know that when the problem occurs, Winamp is always running. Here's the problem:
Every once in a while, I can't seem to find any rhyme or reason to it, when I'm listening to MP3s in Winamp, my computer will just freeze (meaning nothing, not even my mouse, will work), prompting me to do a hard reboot. This doesn't happen every time I listen to music with Winamp. I would say, on average, it might happen once or twice a week. And this has been going on for as long as I can remember.
I've looked into updating my sound card drivers, but I believe they are already up to date. I also thought that perhaps the problem might be my computer was overheating, as I've experiened the same type of freeze when doing processor intensive operations, like encoding video files. So I've installed a new fan and completly dusted everything in my computer, including the fan on the processor, and even applied new thermal gel to the processor itself.
But the problem still continues. As I said, it seems to only happen when I am listening to music through Winamp. But more times than not, I can listen to music through Winamp without any problems. I've looked in my Event Viewer to see if anything jumped out at me as the cause of this problem, but I didn't notice anything with the Yellow Triangle and Exclamation point icon. Though, admittedly, I am not very savvy in the ways of Event Viewer, so perhaps the cause is listed in the there, and I just haven't noticed it.
I would appreicate some help if any one can offer it.
Thanks,
mike.