What could be wrong with my computer?

[Gayowulf]

Recently I am finding it very difficult to play movies on my computer.

It seems that any type, especially DivX avis give me trouble.

They will play for around 5 minutes and then freeze. The sound will continue, but the picture wont. I can usually shutdown the player and then restart the video where I left off, but the whole process repeats itself. Occasionally the whole computer will lock up, or the top portion of my desktop will turn into green or purple lines.

I'm using the latest codecs, and the problem occurs over every player I use.

My computer is a p4 1.6 with 512mB ram and a 32MB video card.

thanks for any help

[tandoc]

mine did that too

are u using xp?

if so, if ur computer isn't doing anything, it will auto-defrag, consuming precious resources needed to watch movies on a computer

[Gayowulf]

yes. XP pro

How does one go about turning that auto defrag off?

[tandoc]

dunno - i'm still searching my self

[aphel aura]

Delete anything you don't need in Control Panel ---> Scheduled Task.

But I suspect that the movie problem is caused by something else because the auto defrag thingy doesn't prevent me from watching movies (DVD and VCD).

[tandoc]

have u got SP1 installed? it only happened to me after i did that

[Gayowulf]

SP1?



aphel aura: I still have the problem when I shut down any process that I dont need.

[Bruce]

Originally posted by Gayowulf
SP1?
Service Pack 1.

[Gayowulf]

is that one of those annoying windows xp updates that pops up every few days?

[Daniel]

Originally posted by Gayowulf
is that one of those annoying windows xp updates that pops up every few days?

No...those are patches. Service Pack 1 is basically all those things mixed together into one big thing. Usually leads to other bugs.

[aphel aura]

Originally posted by Gayowulf
SP1?



aphel aura: I still have the problem when I shut down any process that I dont need.

No, I didn't tell you to kill any processes, but I want you to kill all entries at the "Scheduled Task" applet in Control Panel, so that unnecessary process(es) will not pop-up during movie playback.

[Gayowulf]

I've got no scheduled tasks.

[GregT]

Originally posted by aphel aura
Delete anything you don't need in Control Panel ---> Scheduled Task.

But I suspect that the movie problem is caused by something else because the auto defrag thingy doesn't prevent me from watching movies (DVD and VCD).

dvd's and vcd's arent on the hd so that would no affect on them. if its on the hd the auto defrag is prolly moving parts of the movie and killing it. i got w2k so ive never had this problem. :)

[Gayowulf]

Auto Defrag is turned off.

I think this problem is caused by my ----ty video card.

[GregT]

Originally posted by Gayowulf
Auto Defrag is turned off.

I think this problem is caused by my ----ty video card.

what kind is it ? mines pretty ----ty (gf 2 mx200 OC) and i can watch divx movies no prob.

[Who?]

its something with winxp SP1, because before i upgraded to SP1 .avi movies played fine, now with SP1 my comp comes to a dead stop when i try to play .avi movies, my cpu jumps to 100% and and the ram used jumps to 384MB

[Gayowulf]

sounds familiar.

Can SP1 be removed?

[Daniel]

Originally posted by Gayowulf

Can SP1 be removed?

Reinstall windows xp.

[aphel aura]

SP1 can be uninstalled, as long as you've chosen to make backup when installing SP1.