I have been having the same issues with recent builds. I kept locking up on some Burning Spear files....I just looked ...they are MPC. I am fully defragged.
MC won't even play these files apparently, it just continually buffers. I understand the Analyze Audio feature crunches a lot of cpu, but it really is hard to stop; you really have to wait a while. The display doesn't always accurately represent what it's doing either, the bar represents total progress but it will be 3/4 across while the count is stuck displaying 5 out 567 left. Maybe it needs looking as well as MPC issue.
JC
Media Center Registered 11.0.280 -- D:\Media Center11\
Microsoft Windows XP Workstation 5.1 Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
AMD Athlon 2307 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 1048 MB, Free - 492 MB
Internet Explorer: 6.0.2900.2180 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158) / Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2900.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158) / Shell32.dll: 6.00.2900.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158) / wnaspi32.dll: 4.60 (1021) , ASPI for Win32 (95/NT) DLL, Copyright © 1989-1999 Adaptec, Inc. / Aspi32.sys: 4.60 (1021)
Ripping / Drive H: LITE-ON DVDRW LDW-811S Mode:ModeSecure Type:Auto Speed:Max
Digital playback: Yes / Use YADB: Yes / Get cover art: No / Calc replay gain: Yes / Copy volume: 32767
Eject after ripping: Yes / Play sound after ripping: No
Burning / Drive H: LITE-ON DVDRW LDW-811S Addr: 1:0:0 Speed:24 MaxSpeed:40 BurnProof:Yes
Test mode: No / Eject after writing: Yes / Direct decoding: Yes / Write CD-Text: Yes
Use playback settings: No / Normalization: None