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[sthomp]

Hello,

I recently bought a new motherboard and started with a clean install of Windows XP Pro. Now whenever I try to play a video file (mostly avi, but also mpg) my PC locks up after a few moments, and I have to hit the reset button.

I'm trying this in Windows Media Player 10. (I haven't reinstalled Media Center 10 yet, since I don't want to confuse the issue of what the problem is.)

I've installed the XviD codec, but no others so far. (Again, I don't want to complicate things.) GSpot tells me that I've got the right codecs installed for the video files I'm trying to play. It also renders them successfully.

The motherboard is an ECS PT800CE-A. Video card is an ATI Radeon 7000. I'm using the latest drivers (but not the Catalyst Control Center version).

Any help would be appreciated.

[Alex B]

It sounds like a hardware problem. Do you have enough cooling? Could also be too tight memory settings in BIOS. In this thread Mastiff gave some instructions for checking the hardware: http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=26709.msg185413#msg185413

[sthomp]

I ran Stress Prime 2004 for 24 hours with no errors reported. I ran 3DMark03, but I couldn't figure out how to run it in a loop. Maybe that's not available in the free version. Is there something free that will do a looped video test?

Cooling seems fine and bios memory settings are all auto. Aargh.

[JimH]

In the FAQ here, there is a nice set of tests suggested by Omni.

[sthomp]

I had seen his post about memtest and prime95, but perhaps I'm missing something. If I understand correctly, those test memory & cpu (which Stress Prime 2004 also tests), but I got the impression 3DMark would test the video card itself. I don't see anything in Omni's post (pointed to in the FAQ) that would test the video hardware. Am I missing it? Or misunderstanding what is or needs to be tested?

[JimH]

I don't think you can assume that video playback locking up is a video hardware problem.  Bad memory could also lock up the PC.

[sthomp]

I'm not assuming that, but I thought when I ran Stress Prime I was testing memory as well. It had an option to test CPU, memory, or both and I chose both.

I'll run memtest86 as well, just to be sure. (This is the same memory I've been using successfully for a long time, but maybe it isn't working well with the new motherboard.)

[JimH]

Try a google search for similar problems.  Also search for Via chipset problems.

[Alex B]

I have noticed that the automatic memory settings for my Intel chipset based MSI P4 motherboard and Geil DDR400 memory combination are not stable. I had constant lockups before I found better settings. It wasn't easy to find that information. I spent a couple of evenings on the net searching for it. The new settings are actually tighter, but for some reason they are also stable.

I suppose your problem is not similar because you could run the memory test.

Is your motherboard chipset VIA? Have you installed current drivers for it, especially the AGP driver?

[glynor]

The problem definately sounds hardware related to me as well.  It certainly could be the AGP (GARP) drivers, or it could be a memory problem.  I've personally sworn off VIA chipsets because they have a propensity to be so touchy about memory (I've ended up tossing 2 different VIA-based motherboards after fighting with memory-related stability problems for months).  If that's a VIA board, I agree with Alex B and would say that "Auto" might not be the best choice.

Stress Prime runs essentially the same tests as Prime95, but uses a nice GUI.  Prime95 is great for testing the CPU and North/Southbridge on a motherboard, and "by association" helps to test the memory and AGP bus as well, but it does not explicity do so.  I would definately suggest running Memtest86 overnight on the computer and see if it lives through a few passes.  If not, then start Googling for RAM stability issues with your board.

In addition to playing with the Timing settings, you may also end up needing to bump up the VCORE for the RAM setting a bit to get the sticks to run stable (though I too would do a search before I started messing around with those settings).

[sthomp]

Just to let folks know how things turned out, I was finally able to fix the problem by using the hardware acceleration slider to turn off DirectDraw & Direct3D acceleration. That's probably something I should have known about, but I never had to do that before. Anyway, everything is great now, and Media Center is humming along just fine.

Thanks to everyone.

[JimH]

Thank you for reporting the solution.