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[gpvillamil]

I'm experiencing a very annoying problem: when ripping a CD, I get most of the way through, then the computer goes through a hard reboot by itself. No blue screen, just reboots as if the reset button had been pressed. As soon as it finishes booting, I get the "Windows has experienced a serious error" dialog.

I'm quite sure this is *not* an MC12 problem, but am putting this out in hopes of help from the community.

I've experienced something like this before, so this is what I did:

I checked the driver properties for the DVD-RW drive, and noticed a couple of additional unsigned drivers. These were GearASPIWDM.sys and pfc.sys. I went through the detailed procedure for removing these from the registry and from windows\system32.

Checking driver properties showed them to be gone, so I tried again. This time MC12 got much further through ripping the CD, but crashed on the last song.

It is happening with other CDs as well.

[gpvillamil]

Media Center Registered 12.0.417 -- C:\Program Files\J River\Media Center 12\

Microsoft Windows XP 5.1 Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
AMD Unknown 2161 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 2096 MB, Free - 1299 MB

Internet Explorer: 7.0.5730.13 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82.2900 / Shlwapi.dll: 6.0.2900 / Shell32.dll: 6.0.2900 / wnaspi32.dll: N/A
Ripping /   Drive E: PIONEER DVD-RW  DVR-111   Mode:Normal  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 E: PIONEER  DVD-RW  DVR-111    Addr: 0:0:0  Speed:48  MaxSpeed:48  BurnProof:Yes
  Test mode: No /  Eject after writing: Yes /  Direct decoding: Yes /  Write CD-Text: Yes
  Use playback settings: No /

Portable Device Info
  Removed devices:


Interface Plugins:
  last.fm (Active)
  Library Server (Active)
  TiVo Server (Active)
  UPnP Server (Active)

[JimH]

I'd buy another drive.

You could try a google search.

[glynor]

My guesses in rough order of likelihood...

1) Those "drivers" were possibly DRM shenanigans, installed by so-called "protected" music CDs.  Some of these have been known to cause crashes, particularly during ripping.  The best bet for this is unfortunately a nuke-pave (wipe the drive and reinstall the OS and applications from scratch).  Some of these drivers use rootkits (Sony's old "pulled" one for example) to hide the drivers from user-mode, so there is literally no way to uninstall them safely on a running system.  It could also potentially be spyware.  You could try running full Spyware scans with Spybot S&D if you haven't recently.

The "gear" driver is probably somewhat benign.  It's part of iTunes and Norton Ghost 9 among other applications.  It can cause problems, but nothing like that I don't think.  Not sure what the other one is...

2) Bad RAM.  Nothing can take a system down quicker than faulty memory.  Download Memtest 86+ and burn it to a disc, boot the computer up to the CD (you may need to change the "Boot Order" in your BIOS to try to boot the CD drive before the Hard Drive).  Let the test run through a few passes (4-5) overnight.  If you get ANY errors, you probably have bad RAM (or you've overclocked/timed it too tight).

3) Bad Optical drive and/or bad optical drive Cable.  These are so absurdly cheap now that I'd probably just replace them if this is even in doubt at all.  While you're at it, replace the cable on your hard drive too.

4) Bad hard drive.  Check the drive with the utility provided by your drive manufacturer.  Seagate and Western Digital both make nice, bootable, CD images that can run tests on their own drives.  If you don't happen to have a Seagate or WD drive, the Seagate tool can also do a more generic test on any drive, which is pretty good.  Do the Short and Long test versions.

5) Hopefully those things fixed it... However, it is certainly possible that you have a bad board or bad CPU.  Prime95 is a great way to torture test the system for stability.  If you have a new-fangled dual-core CPU (or even if you don't), the easiest way to run this test is using Orthos Stress Prime Beta which is pre-set to launch threads per CPU.  Run this test for 24hours to ensure stability.  If it fails, it could indicate lots of stuff.... However, the most likely candidates are CPU, RAM, or Motherboard (in roughly that order).  If your RAM already passed the Memtest86+ passes, then it's probably CPU or board (and if you have to replace one, you probably need to replace both).

This is assuming that your Windows install is clean.  If you haven't done the nuke/pave, then instability here could be caused by bad drivers.  Also, I see your CPU is listed as AMD Unknown @ 2.1GHz.  If you're overclocking, and especially if you're pumping extra voltage into it, it could be starting to fry.  Check it for stability, and if it fails, try to dial it back a bit (or back to default for testing purposes).

6) Last, but not least, it could conceivably be a shoddy power supply.  These too are cheap, so if you suspect it could be power-related, perhaps just replace it (this is a very nice low-end one -- I've just purchased 2 of them).  If you have a voltage meter and are willing to take the time, you could test the one you have.  It might be easier to take it to a local computer shop and ask them to test the PSU to ensure that it is providing the right voltage on the right rails.  Also, make sure your computer isn't on the same circuit as the Air Conditioner or anything (you would be surprised -- I've seen it).

All of this stuff is of course assuming you don't have a laptop.  If you're on a laptop, you can still run the tools to check on things, but replacing components of course is near impossible (except RAM usually).

[gpvillamil]

Replacing the drive did the trick. I guess when something that was working stops working, hardware deterioration is a likely explanation.

Also ran the NeroCheck utility to repair the UpperFilter/LowerFilter driver entries.

pfc.sys was installed either by Adobe CS3 or Nero, but is not mission critical.