Win media player 9 won't play MPEG's

[Ella]

System: WinXPhome/ Pent4 1.6/ 256mb SDRAM/80gb HD. Medion OEM windows installation.

A recent return to factory settings on the PC has left Win Media Player 9 unable to play an MPEG file. It tries to play then crashes to a BSOD and the computer restarts. Error reading codec comes up just before the crash. Have ensured that Media player 9 is the latest and is updated, also all relevant Win updates are in. Have downloaded DIVX, WinMedia analyzer, and also the codecs for Media 8 and 9. Tried everything and still no joy.

The player will play AVI files and a DVD disk.

On occasion a blue screen comes up, but not all the time saying that the BIOS should be disabled for caching or shadowing. Have had a look around and can't find any solution there.

Another message is that 'driver IRQL is not less or equal' and an error message as follows:

***stop:0X000000DI(0X00000000,0X00000009,0X00000000,0X000000 00)

As stated, this is only occasional and mostly the computer just crashes.

Whilst probably irrelevant the installation of Norton Anti Virus seemed to coincide with the discovery of the blasterwormE virus and this was removed. Full system scan and the removal tool does not find any evidence of the virus.

Help please?

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

Ella,

I would like for you to do me a favor. Go to Start >> Control Panel >> System >> Hardware Tab >> Device Manager Button >> View >> Recourses by Connection

Then click on the [+] next to Interrupt Request (IRQ) and post every IRQ and every Device on each IRQ.

My guess is the problem is with the device on IRQ 9. It BSODs every time it tries to Read. If my hunch is right, we will find your sound card on IRQ 9.

Take Care,

Richard

[Ella]

Media Player

Hi Richard
As Requested
(ISA) 0 Syestem Timer
(ISA) 1 Standard 101/102-key or MSNatural ps/2 Keyboard
(ISA) 3Coms Port (Coms2)
(ISA) 4 Coms Port (Coms 1)
(ISA) 6 Standard floppy disk controller
(ISA) 8 System CMOS/ Realtime Clock
(ISA) 9 Ms ACPI- Compliant Syestem (ps. IRQ9 in this)
(ISA) 10 MPU-401 Compatible MIDI Device
(ISA) 12 Trust AMI Mouse 300 Cordless Dual Scroll
(ISA) 13 Numeric Data Processor
(ISA) 14 Primary IDE Channel
(ISA) 15 Secondary IDE Channel
(PCI) 11 Intel(r) 828001ba/BAM SMBUS Controler-2443
(PCI) 16 Nvidia Geforce 3 Ti 200
(PCI) 18 VIA OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
(PCI) 19 Intel (r) 8280 IBA/Bam USB Universal Host Controller-2442
(PCI) 20 CMI8738/C3Px PCI Audio Device
(PCI) 21 Realtek RTL8139/810X Family Fast Ethernet NIC
(PCI) 22 VX9HAM1394V
9PCI) 23 Intel(r) 82801 BA/BAM USB Universal Host Controler-2444

Any Help Gratefully Received

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

Ella,

Your IRQs look good and give no hint of any problem.

I would like to start by updating your Audio and Video Drivers:

C-Media CMI8738 Audio Dirvers

nVidia ForceWare Drivers

(Plan is to make sure you have the latest drivers and then we will start to isolate the device causing the problem.)

Take Care,

Richard

[Ella]

Thanks Richard,

Have downloaded drivers and all is running well, however the problem is centred on one particular mpeg that comes from my son's new digital video camera, and opening that still produces 'error loading codecs' in the bottom of media player before the BSOD arrives.

We have found that older mpeg's from other sources seem to play without problem, and are waiting to get hold of other files taken with this camera to find out if it's the camera or the computer that's really at fault.

The errant file plays in Real Player without problem but 'She who must be obeyed' insists on using Win Media player for most media activities including storing and playing music. Hence we are trying to get a fix for this problem.

Thanks again for your help.

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

Ella,

It sounds like a bad codec. I would now worry about it for now, since that one mpg does play with Real Player. If you have other mpgs that BSOD then we will look into it deeper.

Take Care,

Richard

[RadarContact]

Sounds to me like one of the programs you installed afterwards has changed or overwritten one of MS's codecs - something MS reeeeally doesn't like .

Try reinstalling Win Media Player from here and see if it works then. Maybe the encoding tool of the camera uses a newer or slightly different codec than your player.

Have you tried playing back the file on a different computer?

[Ella]

Hi Radar,

Thanks for your reply. The file was transferred to a friends laptop running media player 9 and winXPhome. It still produced the 'Error loading codec' message but then played OK rather than crashed.

We tried matching all the codecs between the machines via a data transfer cable but to no avail.

Since then other MPEG's have played OK so perhaps you are right to suspect the camera rather than the 'puter.

Would it be worth installing the driver and any available software for this camera on our computer? or will it not make any difference.

Thanks again.

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

Ella,

It is worth a try.

The codec you need might be included with either the driver or one of the programs.

Take Care,

Richard