PC crashes when playing DVDs & DVD Files

[cranky]

Hello,

My PC crashes everytime I try to play a DVD, and doesn't recover unless I reboot it. The PC just freezes, and doesn't allow me to do anything, even when I eject the DVD.

My setup is:

Operating System: Windows XP Pro SP3
Motherboard: ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 6400+
Memory: 4GB RAM
Graphics: ZOTAC NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT 1GB DDR2 Memory
DVD-RW Drive: NEC ND-3520AW
Combo DRive: Samsung SM-352F
Sound: Onboard

It can happen quite soon into playback or halfway through a movie. At first I thought it was the DVD disc so I copied it to my hard drive. When I tried to play the DVD files from my hard drive it crashed too. I have tried with both of my DVD drives. So, it can't be my DVD drive can it? I'm pretty sure that my DVD drive is fine because it can read and write DVDs with no problems, only during playback.

Then I converted the movie to AVI which plays with no problems from my hard drive and directly from a DVD-R.

Then I thought it could be the DVD playback software (Cyberlink PowerDVD 7.3), so I tried using Media Player Classic, Windows Media Player 11 and VLC to play the DVDs as well as the ripped DVD files, which all crash during playback.

I have tried uninstalling the Motherboard and Graphics card drivers and replacing them with updated drivers, but experience the same issues.

Also, I heard that Windows XP doesn't like more than 3.5 RAM so I removed 2GB to see if that would change anything, but still had the same problems.

I don't really know what else to try, so I would appreciate any help.

Thank you

[Jimbo]

Try uninstalling the IDE Channels that the players are on and reboot and let windows reinstall them and see if that will help and that will rule out the burners, I see that Kerry is in here and maybe he can help you further

[Kerry56]

I would have thought you had a codec conflict, but if it crashes with VLC as well, I'm not sure that is the problem.

I'd check the heatsink on both the cpu and the graphics card. Make sure they are still attached well and are not full of dust.

XP 32bit will only use a portion of the 4gb memory you have, but having that much won't be an issue. You might run Memtest86 and check to see that the memory isn't part of the problem. You should see no errors when running memtest.

[platinumsword]

What error does the event id log give you?

There should be a given error logged when this happens

In XP

How to View Event Logs

To open Event Viewer, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, and then click Control Panel. Click Performance and Maintenance, then click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Computer Management. Or, open the MMC containing the Event Viewer snap-in.
2. In the console tree, click Event Viewer.

The Application, Security, and System logs are displayed in the Event Viewer window.

How to View Event Details

To view the details of an event, follow these steps:
[ol]
[li]Click Start, and then click Control Panel. Click Performance and Maintenance, then click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Computer Management. Or, open the MMC containing the Event Viewer snap-in.[/li][li]In the console tree, expand Event Viewer, and then click the log that contains the event that you want to view.[/li][li]In the details pane, double-click the event that you want to view. [/li]
The Event Properties dialog box containing header information and a description of the event is displayed.

To copy the details of the event, click the Copy button, then open a new document in the program in which you want to paste the event (for example, Microsoft Word), and then click Paste on the Edit menu.

To view the description of the previous or next event, click the UP ARROW or DOWN ARROW.
[/ol]

How to Interpret an Event

Each log entry is classified by type, and contains header information, and a description of the event. Event Header

The event header contains the following information about the event:

• Date

The date the event occurred.

• Time

The time the event occurred.

• User

The user name of the user that was logged on when the event occurred.

• Computer

The name of the computer where the event occurred.

• Event ID

An event number that identifies the event type. The Event ID can be used by product support representatives to help understand what occurred in the system.

• Source

The source of the event. This can be the name of a program, a system component, or an individual component of a large program.

• Type

The type of event. This can be one of the following five types: Error, Warning, Information, Success Audit, or Failure Audit.

• Category

A classification of the event by the event source. This is primarily used in the security log.

Event Types

The description of each event that is logged depends on the type of event. Each event in a log can be classified into one of the following types:

• Information

An event that describes the successful operation of a task, such as an application, driver, or service. For example, an Information event is logged when a network driver loads successfully.

• Warning

An event that is not necessarily significant, however, may indicate the possible occurrence of a future problem. For example, a Warning message is logged when disk space starts to run low.

• Error

An event that describes a significant problem, such as the failure of a critical task. Error events may involve data loss or loss of functionality. For example, an Error event is logged if a service fails to load during startup.

• Success Audit (Security log)

An event that describes the successful completion of an audited security event. For example, a Success Audit event is logged when a user logs on to the computer.

• Failure Audit (Security log)

An event that describes an audited security event that did not complete successfully. For example, a Failure Audit may be logged when a user cannot access a network drive.

[cranky]

Thank you all for your suggestions. I'll give them a try tomorrow to see what I find.

[batfish55]

It's about time I found someone else having this problem.

I too have the m2n-sli MB.

Tho, it seems I've traced it to either a read-error directly from a dvd.

If I'm accessing data ANY way from a dvd (watching, copying, ripping, etc), if there's a read error, the computer crashes. But not just crashing, the thing reboots like someone pulled the power cord out of the back of the box, and then plugged it back in. There is a moment before it crashes when the box freezes, but that's all the warning I get.

First I noticed the when I was accessing a dvd, sometimes the computer would reboot, as per above description. Couldn't figure out why, I don't have that probelm on my other computer with the dvd in question. It's worth noting that when this happens, the dvd in question is always scratched.

If I burn a movie, I always check the 'verify' box on the burning program. almost always, the burn goes through ok, but sometimes, during the verify process, at any point during verification, it will bounce. When I go back and try to play the unverifiable dvd, I find that the dvd skips some places.

So.....unless someone can draw a different conclusion, I'm going with the thing crashes because of some kind of read error.

From here....What do I do to fix it?

If it makes a difference, the drive in question is a hp1070i (and hp support was less than helpful), and I'm runnig 2K.

Thanks much!

[chef]

Its even possible that the used gfx driver is totally bugged.
Tried to replace it?

[batfish55]

My first thought was "Why? That doesn't make any sense." But this is windows, so I did it. New driver from nvidia.com..... And it still crashes on dvdrom read errors.

Thanks, tho.

Any other ideas?

-Still Stumped

[brokenbuga]

Power supply is known good?

It's always the first thing I suspect when random crashes or shutdowns occur.

[batfish55]

How do we define 'known good'?

This computer is about 5 months old now, and it got a brand new power supply when I built it. One of those modular raidmax (I think) things.

But it's been doing this since the first time it read a scratched dvd....maybe a few weeks after it first turned on.

So, I'd have to say the power supply is ok. Good line of thinking, tho.

I suppose the latest development has been the speed of the read.

I've found that, when burning at max speed (choosing 16x, but actually burning at 12ish-x), I get more porblems. Never on the burn, but on the verification re-read.

I started burning stuff at 8x....and I haven't crashed since on a verification read.

So that solves a little bit, and confirms that it's a bad read. On the downside, it still crashes on reading a scratched dvd.

Still buh-zarre.