On 03/29/2012 08:58 AM, Ant wrote:
Hi!

I am having annoying, rare hard computer lock ups when it comes
to playing videos through local files (MPEG-2 and TS) with
various players (Media Player Classic-Home Cinema, DVB Viewer
Pro, and VideoLAN Client (VLC) Media Player) and streaming
Mozilla SeaMonkey v2.0.14 web browser's Flash. It's not easy to
reproduce the hard crash easily since it is rare and random. I
don't need to be using the computer with the videos playing to
reproduce the hard lock ups too. It has been happening for over a
year or so on this old, updated Windows XP Pro. SP3 machine with
a MSI R4870-T2D512 OC Radeon HD (512 MB) PCIe video card from
late 2008. More details can be found in
http://zimage.com/~ant/antfarm/about/computers.txt for the
primary computer.

I tried upgrading with its various drivers and softwares, but
nothing seems to improve and fix this problem. The only thing
that seems to fix it is disabling video acceleration fully (none)
in Windows XP Pro. I have not seen the hard lock ups for about a
month of testings with no video accerelation. SP3's display
properties' troubleshoot tab (no reboot required). However, this
makes display stuff slower and choppier, unable to use ATI/AMD's
CCC, upside down videos for some formats (e.g., MPEG-2 and TS),
etc. DPC Latency Checker v1.3.0 showed about 1000-2000us with
acceleration for videos. Without acceleration, it is under 250us.
Big differences and maybe the cause?

Here is what I have observed and done so far over the year:
-PC frozen hard and audio stuck (if playing audio) when playing
videos (Flash, MPEG-2, and TS). Requires a reset button push.
-After powering off frozen PC, its computer's front power light
is still on but fans are off.
-Happened when multitasking and idled (MPC-HC after 4.25, 5:37
minutes, hours, etc.) with SM2 (many or one tab(s)).
-Both MPEG-2 decoders (CyberLink PowerDVD 7 and MainConcept) have
choppy problems, but
-Choppy video and/or audio, and desynched audio related to lock ups?
-Froze in a noisy Marine's Aquarium screen saver once so far.
-Resetted ATI settings to use its defaults (global and each
button) in CCC, deleted profiles, deleted profiles.xml files, and
redid profiles.
-Disabled onboard audio in device manager and use MPC's options
playback output audio renderer null renderer.
-Disabled Dxdiag's audio acceleration options.
-Unplugged speaker cables from onboard audio.
-Uninstalled, ran Drive Sweeper, and installed latest RealTek's
audio driver again (didn't work with previous ones)
-Installed newer Intel chipset drivers.
-Uninstalled K-Lite.
-Ran four registry cleaners and three optimizers.
-Replaced dying 500 GB HDD with a new 1 TB HDD that hold videos.
-Happened with MPEG2, TS, and SM2's streaming Flash videos.
-Happened in MPC-HC, DVB Viewer Pro., and VLC with recorded and
live -MPEG-2 and TS videos only. WMV, MKV, MP4, FLV, etc. don't
seem to reproduce the hard lock ups.
-Happened in both single and clone (DVI + CRT TV) display with
just playing and skipping.
-Happened with a little as 30 minutes to a few days for Windows
uptime. -A few minutes to four hours for playing local videos if
reproduced.
-Happened with always on power and minimal setups.
-Happened with VGA 60 hz and 70 hz primary VGA LCD monitor.
-Happened without ATI Stream SDK v2 Developer.
-Happened without ATI Media Codec/Avivo.
-Happened in cold and hot temperatures.
-Happened in both computer usage and idled status.
-It doesn't matter with USB versus/vs. USB+PS2 adapter for mouse.
-Happened with and without ffdshow audio's volume increase.
-Happened with and without bass.
-Upgraded updated IE6 to 7 with all updates.
-Uninstalled and installed latest K-Lite Mega Codecs.
-Uninstalled old MPEG-2 codec and SopCast.
-Uninstalled Firefox v2.0.0.20 and XeroBank web browser.
-Uninstalled DVD Fab.
-Uninstalled VMware Workstation
-Disabled disc drives
-Reinstalled the DirectX 9.0c June 2010.
-Tested DirectX.
-Reinstalled DirectX 9.0c online, but it detected I have the latest.
-Set DirectX display to use 70hz refresh rate.
-Changed CMOS' values (crashed after about 1.5 hours while
surfing web and watching a WMV in MPC):
CPU Vcore values from 1.01875 V to 1.02500
CPU DLL Vcore from 1.375 V to 1.400 V
DIMM Voltage from 1.100 V to 1.125 V
-Uninstalled SilverLight v1.0.0.
-Changed SATA HDD.
-Disabled Catalyst AI.
-Disabled ATI HDMI audio driver.
-Disabled video's "Hardware Accelerator" with two notches
left/down from maximum.
-Disabled DVXA.
-Disabled two dxdiag.exe/DirectX's features (can't disable
DirectDraw or pink display): Direct3D Acceleration and AGP
Texture Acceleration
-Disabled HP's startup programs.
-Powered off speakers, CRT TV, and VCR.
-Deleted C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\DRM
-Uninstalled System47 screen saver.
-Disabled IME startups.
-Removed VirtualEarth 3D plugin and upgraded Google Earth
-Disabled rundll32.exe ptipbmf.dll startups.
-Doesn't seem to related to MCD, PuTTY, SecureCRT, PopTray,
Pick-A-Tag, and Trillians.
-Tried disabling ATI's Video's All Settings: Automatic
deinterlacing, dynamic contrast, and enforced smooth video playback.
-Disconnected and replugged speaker cable
-Uninstalled and upgraded RealTek's latest audio and network
drivers.
-Uninstalled ATI/AMD's video driver, ran Driver Sweeper, and
installed ATI video driver with a newer one.
-Uninstalled Koi Fish 3D screen saver.
-Muted audio in MPC.
-Checked inside PC. Nothing odd, just dusty. Video card was
hot/warm, but it doesn't matter if it is cold/hot in the room.
-Had no problems for about a month and then they came back. Weird.

I really don't want to reinstall Windows from scratch/cleanly to
fix this too. I am hoping someone would have some ideas to try.
Maybe the video card is dying due to its old age? I also don't
play computer games anymore for years, so I don't know if they
will crash too. I assume they will if a 3D screen saver had a
hard lock up before.

Thank you in advance.

The recommended solution for MS Windows problems is Linux.
Ubuntu/Kubuntu would probably be the best choice for someone
mostly happy with Winblows.

Cheers!

jim b.

--
UNIX is not user unfriendly; it merely
expects users to be computer-friendly.