...could anyone pleasssssse help me..!! Windows media player (and any other programme ive tried using) keeps freezing up when I try to play a DVD on it. it freezes and then comes on..then takes ages again before showing angthing :swear: .I've restarted my computer, it still wont work. It continues to freeze up. im running WINDOWS XP thanks in advance !
Please try and give us a few more clues: Does this only happen when you play DVD's? Or is you compter generaly slower. Does it seem like the HDD is forever churning away even if you are not playing a DVD?Did you ever play DVD successfuly before? What happen when you try to play an audio file?
yeah only dvd's...cd's/audio are fine! dvd's used to play..now all of a sudden its just going on funny ive tried WMP, REAL PLAYER, DIVZ, POWER DVD.. SAME THING HAPPENS so its something to do with the computer
What are your PC specs? Also have you tried scanning for spyware adware etc? They can drastically slow things down. Try Spybot Search & Destroy and Ad-Aware to scan for spyware and adware. Also try a full system scan with virus software. It may not be that but often spyware etc can slow things on PC's down, and it's a right pain in the :swear:
Right Click on "My Computer" and select properties. It should give you basic information, amount of RAM and CPU Speed. For more advanced PC information try PC Wizard that gives a lot of informationa bout your computer if you ever need it in future, just basic information is all we need at the minute. CPU Speed, amount of RAM would be a good start.
Hmm CPU is alright but you don't have much RAM, I suspect something is eating up what's left of your RAM after Windows has loaded. What programs load up when you start your PC up? Are there lots of icons in your taskbar? (bottom right of your screen usually) We'll wait for the scan results first though.
MM only msn mess loads up.. taskbar = msn, ares, AVG, nokia pc suite, wannadoo, winamp http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/1814/taskbar6jy.png
Hi RAM should be fine as a system with even just 128MB RAM should play DVD just fine. I know because my old dell had only 128MB RAM originaly and it played DVD's just fine. However, Mat is right in suggesting that this does not leave much headroom. If you have some renegade process, eating up your RAM, then it could cause some delays and chopinnes in video play. Video play is quite a resources hungry process. Bottom line, get rid of any process which you are sure should not be 'out there'. 'Double Click' I am pretty sure is adware. I would trust Spybot with the findings. GET THEM OUT!!! :gun: Open the system monitor by pressing Ctr+Alt+Del and choose the 'Task Manager' and click on the 'Processes' tab. Have a look to see if there is a process which takes a lot of resources, i.e. the 'CPU' value is very high and also the 'Mem Usage' is very high. Ignore the 'System Idle Precess. Then, while the 'Task Manager' is open, try and play a DVD. Look in the 'Task manger and see what resources does the player pull. It will be interesting to see the information. Another thing to set is DMA. Do not worry about the initials. You need to enable this option both in the BIOS and in the 'Device Manager' area. In BIOS I cannot help as I do not know your BIOS. In Windows, open the control pannel and double click on the 'System' icon. In the new window, click on the 'Hardware' tab. Now click on the 'Device Manager'. In the long list, look for the 'IDE ATA/ATAPI Controller'. Expand (Please see attachment) and you should see the two IDE channels. Right click on the first (primary) and choose 'Properties' and a new window will open. Click on Advanced settings (again see attachment). Make sure that the DMA options are present and set ("DMA if available" and "Auto Detection"). Now do the same for the second IDE channel. If you know for sure which channel holds your DVD-ROM you can apply the changes to just the right channel. However, it will not hurt to have both set for DMA. Hope this help. Just a suggestion - if you are going to use a lot of multimedia. I think you should try and up your RAM. It can only help. You should have atleast 256MB, just to give you a bit of 'edge'. Good luck and come back to report on progress....
Personally, i'd get rid of most of those programs in your system tray considering the amount of RAM your system has. Namely MSN, Ares, Nokia PC Suite, Wannadoo and Winamp. But in this case, i don't think it's the RAM's fault. If you have Nero installed, open Nero Info Tool from the tools menu in the start menu where Nero is and check what the ASPI tab says.
It looks like you have several problems: Not enough RAM for WindowsXP Too many running processes Spyware Poor DVD Player Software Virii? DMA? Let's address these one at a time... 1) Not Enough RAM for XP: Windows XP is kind of a memory hog, especially with antivirus software, anti-spyware software, and other memory-resident software running. I recommend at least 512mb RAM for XP to run effeciently. 2) Too many running processes: Try running StartupList to remove uneeded software from starting up with Windows, thus preserving RAM and CPU cycles. Remember, Windows has some issues multitasking; the less it has to do the better your performance will be. 3) Spyware: It looks like you are infected with spyware, an extremely common occurance for Windows users. I noticed that you have already installed and run Spybot S&D, but I also advise installing and running AdawareSE and perhaps Hijack This if you have especially stubborn spyware. Make sure your anti-spyware clients are updated and scan regularly -- perhaps weekly or more often if you notice problems. 4) Poor DVD Player Software: WMP is not a very good media player to be honest, especially since you are short on RAM. If your DVD ROM came with PowerDVD or WinDVD, I'd advise using that instead. If not, maybe another forum regular can recommend some for you (I don't run Windows myself so I can't really recommend a good one for you). 5) Virii?: Are you running antivirus software? If not, it is likely that you are infected with virii. You should always run an anti-virus in Windows, as it is just as vulnerable to such malicious software as it is to spyware due to inherant design flaws on that platform. AVG Free is a very good AV, and like the name implies it is free for home usage. Keep in mind that an anti-virus is only as effective as its virus patterns, so be sure to keep it up to date. Also, antiviruses do utilize CPU and RAM resources as well as adding a few more running processes to the mix. Unfortunately, it is a necessary evil for those running Microsoft Windows. Sorry. 6) DMA?: Make sure you have DMA enabled for both your primary and secondary IDE channels. On some drives, Windows chooses to fall back on PIO rather than DMA, which hurts performance massively and causes your system resources to bog down remendously. If the DVD-ROM doesn't support DMA at all, replace the drive with one that does. Hope this helps... -AT
Thx For All The Help people... Stil Aint Managed To Fix It Yet thou.!! O Yeh I Feel Silly Now Aswell.. AUDIO CD'S DONT WORK PROPERLY EITHER :O BUT I DIDNT CHECK Before :O hah: hah: hah:
If you have the ability to use someone else's dvdrom for a few minutes to test it out in your system, I would give it a shot..
