Anybody have crashes in WinXP when playing DivX 3.11 movies?

[killerSheep]

Every once in a while, the computer freezes for a few seconds, followed by a kindof modified version of the "blue-screen of death", which only flashes onscreen long enough to read a few words, and then the computer restarts itself. Has anybody else experienced crashes like this?

I have an NVIDIA GeForce 256 DDR (Creative Annihilator Pro) with the latest reference drivers - Detonator 2.83 XP, or whatever they're called. I think this must be the problem, because the OS says on reboot that a serious error has occured and possibly a device failure, and that I should upgrade drivers for my NVIDIA graphics device...

I was mostly just curious if this is happening to anyone else, but since there are no new drivers, I don't see how I could fix this problem in the near future.

[Doom9]

well... I've had a Geforce DDR card too, the Geforce Annihilator Pro from Creative to be precise. I tried several beta versions and RC1 and there I didn't have any problems.. but when I installed the final I had the same kind of problem.. don't think it was specifically related to DivX playback though... it just kept happening no matter what I did. As this was during the period where I was having other problems (data corruption and such) I went back to W2K which worked just fine. As my GFX card fan wasn't that good anymore (made a huge amount of noise which usually indicates it's about to die.. and the chip got really hot too) I was just assuming it was a heat issue and eventually replaced the card.

[killerSheep]

Your card may have been dying, yes. But my fan sounds fine... the card isnt even all that old too. When it happened this last time... i did manage to catch the words "memory overrun" or something to that effect. The only thing that I believe could cause that is some kind of driver problem... Overheating had never been an issue before so I dont see why reformatting and installing XP would all of the sudden change that.

[karloz1]

XP has the option to disable the restart when you get an error. Insted you will get the blue screen so you can see the error message, then you have to reboot. I think it's when you right click on my computer, and go to properties. Or when you right click on the desktop and go to properties. Somewhere in those options you will be able to disable the restart. If you can't figure out where to find it, look it up, or ask around.

[soujir0u]

I get the same error too when I installed DivX4.11, but I reverted back to 4.02 and everything was OK. I'm using TNT2, it seems that certain models have problems with the NVIDIA reference drivers.

[ChristianHJW]

Before switching to an ELSA Gladiac 511 i had an ASUS V3800 with Riva TNT2 . Only the original ASUS drivers worked stable, with Nvidia Riva TNT2 drivers i had Win2000 crashing/freezing ...

[killerSheep]

Here's the important points of what the blue screen reads:

caused by file nv4_disp

The device driver got stuck in an infinite loop. This usually indicates a problem with the device itself or with the device driver programming the hardware incorrectly.

technical information
*** STOP: 0x000000EA(0x81488350,0x81701B50,0x81757B90,0x00000001)
nv4_disp
beginning dump of phys memory
physical memory dump complete


Anybody have any clue how to keep my system from crashing? I'd really like to watch some 3.11 divx movies, but its not looking good so far.

[Doom9]

that was exactly the same error I had... at that time there were no other XP drivers than the default ones that ship with XP.. but as you said, you already tried the latest reference drivers (you mean detonator4 v21.83, don't you?).. so.. you could try a beta driver from www.3dchipset.com.. maybe that will help but if not I'm afraid you'll have to try switching the gfx card... could be it. Try if you can get another nvidia card (not gf1 based) and see if it works stable.. you won't even have to install new drivers for that.

[killerSheep]

Thanks for the advice... yeah, I tried the beta drivers on the web site and still get errors. Also, I recently noticed that my PowerDVD software DVD player has the same exact error, however it happens much less frequently then the DivX playback. I do not need to spend money on a gfx card right now, but if it is the only option I may have to.

[Doom9]

I stumbled accross this issue again on theinquirer.net yesterday. Seems the problem is known.

Here's a proposed fix by MS: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q293078
and here's the via fix: http://forums.viaarena.com/messageview.cfm?start=81&catid=13&threadid=4123

Dunno if they work.. I've never had the problem again. Seems though that if you downgrade to an old detonator (pre detonator xp) and not use the default xp drivers things should work fine. All involved companies are blaming the others.. so nobody knows who's really to blame. Kinda reminds me if the sblive/via issue. Luckily.. since I replaced my gf256 ddr with a gf2 card I haven't had the problem... atm I have two perfectly stable PCs, both using a GF2MX400 card (hercules) and the 22.80 drivers though on this box here I just upgraded to the official 23.11 drivers. but I haven't played any games or watched any movies so far. But luckily in winxp we have driver rollback for unsigned drivers so if something goes wrong I go back to the beta drivers.

Hope this helps... it's really bad to have such stability problems.. I've had enough of them to almost throw my pc out of the window :/

[Difflam]

I actually went back to Windows2000 because I never found a way to resolve this issue. In fact, until now I didnt even know other were having this problem!

I tried just about every single detonator driver from the very first one that was compatible with windows2000 all the way through to some latest alpha/beta drivers.

Nothing ever fixed the problem, and for me it crashed in all kinds of applications (2d and 3d).

What kinda bullcrap is MS talking about on their "supposed" fix for this? "Install the latest drivers"? F^%&* you!!! I have tried every known driver under the sun and the problem was still there.

If anyone is ever able to find out how to fix this problem, post it asap, PLEASE!!!! I'm desperate! :)

[iceman112]

Your problem is caused because you use (or so i pressume) a motherboard with a via chip on, and a nvidia card....look here for more info:
http://www.viahardware.com/

[Difflam]

> Your problem is caused because you use (or so i pressume) a
> motherboard with a via chip on, and a nvidia card....

I dont really see how this can be since I dont get the problem with Win2000 or Win98... the obvious conclusion (for me) is that its some kind of bug in XP...

[Beave]

I have the same problem with the Asus v7100 Deluxe Combo MX and the sis 735 board. I found a driver that works though. It's the official Asus driver with detonator 2181. I was having those crashes a lot especially when the clone mode was activated.

[Stifferd]

It's not VIA. It's probably not your card. And it's not only Divx. However, it may be Divx and a combination of other things.

I have an ASUS mobo (CUSL2) with the INTEL 815 chipset and a BRAND NEW ASUS Geforce3 card. I got the same error while trying to play "Monster Truck Rumble" i.e your videcard has entered an "infinite loop"

I have an infrared laser thermometer which is quite accurate--the card was running cooly at 90 F.

Infinite loop, to me signifies a mathematical (software) problem not hardware. Microsoft says it may be you card because, well it's NOT Microsofts problem...Noooo! lol.

By the way...I got this error with both the WHQL drivers and the current ones. I haven't done anything to my machine since (about a week) and have never got the error again....strange

[Difflam]

Don't get too confident just yet... I had a 2 week period or so when I didnt get the error/crash at all... I thought I had finally found the one driver that doesnt do it... but sure enough after 2 weeks the crashes came back... with avengeance!!!! :)

[cmsmith]

Originally posted by iceman112
Your problem is caused because you use (or so i pressume) a motherboard with a via chip on, and a nvidia card....look here for more info:
http://www.viahardware.com/

Don't listen to this nonsense. Take a look at the Nvidia newsgroup. This is a well known problem that's been happening a LONG time to Intel AND AMD users. I'm suprised Via came out with a "fix" for this as it doesn't look like their fault, rather a Nvidia or Microsoft one.

[Stifferd]

Well I hope it doesn't happen again--Im playing monster Truck Rumble without problems.

But there is still good news for many of us: I think we know now that it's not only VIA, it's not due to an old card, and not due to heat.

I still stand firm that "infinite loop" sounds like a software (ie mathematical problem)to me, and is not related to hardware. I just think Microsoft is covering all bases when it says "check your video hardware" or whatever.

[Pesho]

I had the same problem too - Win2000, AMD ThunderBird 1400, SiS 735 chipset, GeForce 2 Pro (Gigabyte GV-GF-2010).

99% a driver problem for me. I switched back to a pre-DetonatorXP version (12.41) and haven't had a single crash ever since.

You should try the same, and post your results here (unfortunately, WinXP users cannot drop DetonatorXP :( )

[HateBreeder]

I was suffering for a long time from
Inifnite loops
DRIVER_IRQL_LESS_OR_EQUAL
BSOD -> STOP (etc..)
Under Windows XP with my Geforce 2 GTS DDR crard..

until i've installed ASUS's latest
drivers with support for XP.

ASUS V7700 Series Beta Driver for Windows 2000/XP (http://cgi.asus.com.tw/cgi-bin/dl.asp?filename=beta/vga/1462aw2p.zip)

I Hope this help .

[ackotsis]

Originally posted by HateBreeder
I was suffering for a long time from
Inifnite loops
DRIVER_IRQL_LESS_OR_EQUAL
BSOD -> STOP (etc..)
Under Windows XP with my Geforce 2 GTS DDR crard..


I have the same card (32MB), VIA KT266A and Athlon XP 1700+ and never had any problems with NVIDIA Detonators under Windows XP...

[Mikele]

I didn't know about this problem, and today I bought an Asus 7100 GF2, I installed it and guess what... But as some guy suggested in the VIA forum, setting AGP to 2x seems to solve the problem, at least I've played about 1hr of divx and DVD and no BSOD at all. With AGP 4x, I got a blue screen a couple of minutes after starting any divx, so there is a difference, I just hope it's enough.

[HateBreeder]

Perhaps the crashes are related
to the way a motherboard's northbridge manages the AGP bus.

I for example hae the ASUS A7M266 MB with 256MB DDR memory.
This comes equipped with an AMD 761 NorthBridge and a VIA
southbridge.

I also tried playing with the AGP 2X/4X settings but it didn't
seem to work and i've read that alot of others are suffering from
the same problems.

Now, with the new drivers i run at AGP 4X with no problems at all !

The 2X trick isn't a prefered one anyway, since it reduces video
performance.

as for the V7100 cards, there are updated drivers for these to.

Cheers.

[Mikele]

I've tried the latest beta drivers from Asus and also nVidia's reference drivers, but to no avail. I had to disable AGP4x :(

[Mikele]

Crashes are back. This machine has been working ok for about 2 weeks, but now I can't watch more than 5 minutes of any divx without crashing. I'm still using AGP2x.

I don't know what to do, I've tried everything I can think of. Are there any news about this problem?

[warrior15r]

Has anyone had this problem solves? I will get loop problems at least once a day!

[warrior15r]

I can't type. Sorry, I meant. Has anyone solved this problem? I still get loop crashes everyday.

[Mikele]

I've tried lots of things (AGP 2x, playing with memory settings, etc.), but what finally solved the problem was installing VIA 4in1 4.37a. The setup of that box is: Asus V7100 Pro (with Asus 14.62b drivers) - Athlon 900 - Soyo MB - WinXP Pro. AGP is still set to 2x. I think it might also work at 4x. This sucks but I don't need it, so I prefer to leave it as it is, I'm afraid of touching anything now that it's finally running fine :-/

[warrior15r]

Thanx