When I play a dvd movie it often freezes at some point in the movie
and the pointer dosen't appear on the screen. If I'm in full-screen
view (I usually am), the only thing Iv'e found I can do is
ctrl-alt-delete which shows in processes that system is 99% idle
(I have also run "Task Patrol" and "What's Running" and found no undue
activity).
This also brings my task bar onto the screen so I can try a restart.
But when I attempt re-start, I get a rundll32.exe not responding.
Selecting the "end now" button has no effect and I eventually have to
manually reboot after which the dvd player works fine.
Another strange thing during a "freeze", when I went to My Computer
properties and clicked on Device Manager, it showed the hourglass
pointer and ... nothing else.
Device manager never opened.
After reboot, I got in device manager and the only oddity was yellow
exclaimations for
Other Devices/Multimedia Audio Controller.
The system is a Soyo Dragon 2 mobo with a P-4 3.20ghz
2046 ram, Axel GeForce FX 5500 gddr1 video card
MSI TV@nywhere video capture card
Sony DRU 530a dvd drive, Optarc AD 7200a dvd drive
Creative SB Audigy 2 zs audio card
xp home SP1
DVD player is Cyberlink Power DVD ver. 5.0.0.822 which I download
with another computer. It was either an older version or a trial
edition which never quit working.
This computer dosen't have any anti-virus or anti-spyware software as
it's NEVER connected to the internet and I am carefull to scan any
disc or flash drive in my other computer before using it (AVG, AdAware
and Spybot S&D).
It seems to be random as far as how far into a movie or if a sudden
scene change might cause the freeze.
I've recently added the Optarc drive but problem was happening before
and it happens regardless of which dvd drive I use.
Other than the occasional freeze (sometimes older or non-copywrite
protected movies don't freeze), I'm really happy with the Power DVD
program and I may go ahead and buy the full version. But first I would
like to know it's not a computer problem that's unrelated to the
software.
TIA,
Phil Williams
"Hold No Punches.." Rode brings you great shareware/freeware
programs with his honest opinions in this weekly column.
http://freepctech.com/rode
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