[P3Animal]

Hi, I have been working on getting my HTPC stable for 6 months now. Whenever I think that it is stable, something happenes which causes instability. I reformatted and reinstalled XP on my system, with all the proper drivers, and lo and behold, my system was finally stable. I played Moulin Rouge and Spy Game dvd's, which I recently bought, using Sonic Cineplayer 1.5 and they worked flawlessly. However, I rented Twister dvd a few days ago and the movie stops after 10 - 25 mins no matter where I start playing it from! I have to hard reset my PC every time this crash occurs, and when the computer starts up again, the error window says there was a drawing operation error with the Radeon driver.


I have read more posts than you can think of on this forum so I feel that I know what I'm doing, except I have troubleshooted this problem so much and have yet to find an answer. If anyone has any suggestions please offer them. Do you think it might be a faulty graphics card? Also, sometimes when I use Zoomplayer, all the text on the screen becomes extremely garbled and unreadable, and is only solved by rebooting.


I have made a checklist of everything that I have tried to give you all a better understanding of where my assistance lies:


- both IDE controllers are using DMA

- I installed the windows XP certified drivers (3300) for my SB Live! card -- this solved stuttering issues that I had in the past

- I used to run the 6118 Radeon drivers, I have now upgraded to the 6166 drivers (FYI, I have garbled text at times with both the 6118 and 6166 drivers)

- I ripped the dvd to my hard drive but I still have the same crash

- I removed my Pioneer DVD-115 DVD-ROM drive with my Pioneer DVD-116 drive from my other system, and yet I still have the same crash, therefore the problem does not lie with my DVD-ROM drive

- the Twister DVD does not crash when using WinDVD 4, but has audio synch issues

-my other DVD's work fine when using Cineplayer 1.5, but they crash when I use zoomplayer with cineplayer 1.5 video and windvd 4 audio filters


If anyone could PLEASE spare a few minutes of their time to offer some suggestions, I would be very appreciative.


FYI, my personal pc with athlon xp 2000+, 512 mb of ram, geforce4 ti4400 runs the Twister DVD perfectly using windvd, so I belive that rules out a problem with the dvd itself


Here are my HTPC specs:

ASUS P4B533VM mobo w/ Lan and audio onboard (both disabled)

p4 1.6 ghz

256 mb ddr ram

ATI Radeon 8500 LE

pioneer dvd-115 dvd drive

zoltrix tv genie

SB Live! 5.1 soundcard, passing DD/DTS from Digital Out port to my Yamaha receiver

fujitsu 40 gig hd

Panasonic PT-AE100 16x9 pj


Software & drivers:

radeon 6166 (catalyst 2.3) drivers

soundblaster live 3300 certified win xp drivers , from the win update site

win xp pro

ATI DVD 7.6

Sonic Cineplayer 1.5 full version

Zoomplayer 2.9

dscaler 3.1

windvd 4 (not sure what version, how do I check?)





Isaac

 

[P3Animal]

anyone have any suggestions?

 

[P3Animal]

bump

 

[JackLT]

Probably did not see any replies as there is no clear reason for the problems you are having.


I think it is the video card, SB LIve, or the motherboard. Your lucky to have 2 systems so you can test each component.


Have you ever overclocked the system?


Try the following 1 at a time.


1) Test to see if it's the Radeon 8500 LE (is it made by ATI?):

Uninstall the Radeon drivers and the 8500, and and install your Ti4400.


2) If it still crashes, put your 8500 back. Test the SB Live. Remove it and use on board analog audio.


3) When using Zoomplayer, use the Cinemaster 1.5 Video drivers and 1.5 Audio drivers. With the audio into default Waveout not direct sound. That's a very stable combination.


4) Swap the memory in the machine.


I think one of those tests will show the issue. If not it's a problem probably with your motherboard,CPU or bios setup.


Good luck.

 

[inti]

My guess is that it the problem is related to your audio filters or audio drivers. I have similar problems with some disks which I attribute to these causes.


Try testing your setup using CoolDVD filters (included with the trial version of CoolDVD's player) as these are in my experience the most stable under ZP. See here for a filtergraph for these: http://forum.inmatrix.com/ikonboard/...f=7&t=1023&st=

 

[P3Animal]

JackLT, my system is not overclocked. I like your suggestion about testing the 8500LE, but do you think it might be a driver issue? I can't see how it is because most people here use the catalyst 2.3 drivers.


Inti, I like your suggestion as well, however, I'm thinking that it might be a conflict between the Cineplayer 1.5 video filters and the radeon drivers, is that even possible?


Thanks for the suggestions guys


Isaac


Thanks for the help guys, I will try your suggestions

 

[monomer]

If all you're looking for are suggestions... I might suggest you try reviewing your BIOS settings... things like PCI Latency Timer, IRQ for VGA, etc. I've managed to solve quite a few problems on both of my systems by 'diddling' with the BIOS (even with the 'fail safe' settings, unlike the name implies). However, I have relatively limited choices on both computer BIOSs... and I've read up enough on it to know what I can 'safely' change and I know how to get (and flash) everything back if it won't even post. If you aren't sure about your BIOS settings go do a google search on "BIOS guide" and you'll find more info than you've ever imagained. And if you still feel uncomfortable about messing with your BIOS then by all means don't do it.

I hope this helps...

 

[DIY Guy]

Isaac,


How's your power management setup? For grins, in control panel / power options change your scheme to "always on" so nothing shuts off or goes into standby...reboot and test out a dvd to see what happens.

 

[Vern Dias]

Make sure that you don't have anything plugged into the slot closest to the agp slot. These two slots generally share an interrupt.


Just to be sure, check the mobo manual for PCI slots that share the same interrupt line and make sure you don't use both of them.


Deinstall the ATI 7.6 player and reinstall Sonic CP 1.5.


Make sure your BIOS is current


Run DXDIAG and test your video.


Vern Dias

 

[P3Animal]

Thanks everyone, my power settings are set to always on, and I don't think that the PCI slot next the AGP slot is being used.


Vern, isn't DXDIAG for DirectX 8?


Isaac

 

[Vern Dias]

Start Run DXDIAG, you'll be amazed at the information and diagnostics.


You are using DirectX when you play a DVD.


Vern

 

[schud]

Quote:

Originally posted by Vern Dias Start Run DXDIAG, you'll be amazed at the information and diagnostics. You are using DirectX when you play a DVD. Vern

WOW!


Once again, you are the man, Vern!


Had no idea that was hiding there.

 

[P3Animal]

Update:

I managed to watch Twister without crashing by registering a sonic cineplayer video & power dvd audio filter dvd graph that i got from a member of the forum. However, I then tried to run my Gladiator dvd using the same filters in ZP and there was audio stuttering EVERY second. So then I started up Sonic Cineplayer and tried to watch Gladiator through that player. Gladiator crashed about 10 minutes into the movie and I had to rset the computer. This is the same crash that I had with Twister. I then remembered that before I started Gladiator, I had enabled Hardware Acceleration in Sonic Cineplayer. I then disabled Hardware Acceleration and Gladiator as well as Twister played through without a crash!


I hope that I have found the solution to my problem. Although I would like anyone's help with this issue of Hardware Acceleration.


I was under the impression that Hardware Acceleration improves picture quality. Before Cineplayer, I had always played dvds in power dvd and WinDVD with hardware accel on.


Is Hardware Acceleration necessary? Am I really losing a lot of picture quality by not being able to use it? And why am I having these problems?


If anyone would like to see my system specs, they are posted in the first post.


If anyone knows why this is occuring, could you help me out?


Thanks


Isaac

 

[Vern Dias]

With the latest Sonic CP 1.5 patch, the quality of software mode is extremely close if not identical to hardware mode.


As long as you have the CPU to handle it, it's fine.


Vern

 

[P3Animal]

Thanks for the info Vern, I have the latest patch and it won't be too hard to get used to software mode.


Do you know why my Twister DVD played perfectly with the power dvd audio filter, but Gladiator skipped horribly when I tried using it with the Power dvd audio filter?


Thanks for all the help guys


Isaac

 

[gnollo]

Guys, where did you get the patch?

I have looked on Cineplayer website, but I can't see any.

 

[schud]

Quote:

Originally posted by gnollo Guys, where did you get the patch? I have looked on Cineplayer website, but I can't see any.

Hi Gnollo,


The CP1.5 patch is available here. I'm surprised you didn't catch it in CinemVidGuy's thread here. You really need to read the thread regarding "registering" in order to download the patch.

 

[P3Animal]

Hey Gnollo, when I bought and downloaded the Sonic Player, it was already a patched exe so I didn't have to patch it myself.


And Gnollo, thanks for all the info that you provide in this forum, I have a similar system to yours (minus the m-audio sound card), and really got a lot of help from all the info you've posted about your system, and all the help you've given other ppl (case in point, the whole sb live driver debacle)





Isaac

 

[gnollo]

schud

I've been redecorating my house for the past 3 weeks, so I have lost touch a little bit... thanks for the link


P3Animal: I am glad I could help. I was an SBLive owner, so I know your pain...

 

[barhoram]

P3Animal..if you haven't gotten your problems figured out, it may be worth spending 20 bucks on the Aopen sound card with DTS/AC3 SPDIF output. to steer clear of possible SBLive issues. This is what i use, and it works well. Drew