Hi All

I've just built a new pc for using as a media centre, but after installing windows xp, the supplied drivers and power dvd it kept crashing when trying to play a dvd

I tried updating bios, no change

I tried new graphics drivers, no change

I then followed the windows troubleshooter for video problems, it said to reduce video hardware acceleration to the "disable all directdraw and direct3d accelerations". This has worked and I can now play a dvd at full screen.

I'm not sure what this means, do I have a driver problem or is there a fault in the GPU?

Adrian

What graphics card are you using?

Hi

Its an ASUS barebones pundit P1 AH2, which comes with an onboard nvidia geforce 6150 GPU

Adrian

There is unlikely to be any problem with your hardware. You should leave the directdraw and d3d hardware acceleration on, its only a quick fix, and doesnt solve the underlying problem.

I am more inclined to say theres an issue with the dvd decoder.

Try a different program to powerdvd. Try playing the DVD with WM player (should work as you have powerdvd hadling the decoding) if that works then there is an issue with the PDVD exectutable. If it still crashes then your problem lies with the dvd decoder, in which case get yourself a different dvd playing software (some freebies available online) to try.

http://www.cliprex.com/

What version of win xp and processor are you using?

David

[Edited on 14/1/07 by flak monkey]

Hi

Have tried VLC and media player, also tried a wmv file in media player, it played in a window but crashes the pc in full screen

Its xp sp2 and an AMD 2800 socket AM2

Adrian

OK it points to a graphics driver problem.

I know you say you have updated it, but completely uninstall the driver and reinstall the most up to date one from NVidea:

http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp

I assume all of the onboard graphics settings in the bios are activated? (You will be suprised that it will still work if it isnt!)

The 6150 should be able to easily handle simple video rendering. Is your direct x also up to date?

I've seen similar probs with the recent geforce drivers, best bet would be to try downloading an older set of drivers (at least a year older) before spending too much time trying to resolve it by other methods

Cheers

Alex

Thanks for all avice guys, i'll look through the nvidia drivers

Also noticed that the drivers are reporting the wrong video ram, if i set it to 64Mb in bios the driver says i've got 256Mb?

Adrian

Onboard cards share the system ram and should take the amount you specify in the bios.

Thats what I thought, the bios only let me choose between 16 and 128Mb, but the driver always shows more