Windows XP - "My Computer" & optical drives lock up problem

[jimbobuk]

Hey folks,

I'm in the middle of my trial of AnyDVD HD on my brand new machine that i've just finished building a week or so ago. I now finally have the power to run high definition videos including HD-DVDs on my PC. As such my XBOX 360 HD-DVD drive has migrated over onto the top of my PC case.

Last weekend I watched my first HD-DVDs via that drive and all was fairly well, after watching a few disks though and using the system I did start to have a problem where My Computer windows were locked up.. slowly but surely my system would crawl to a halt and not even be able to shutdown windows properly as the hung processes wouldn't even be killed for a shutdown.

I got so worried about this i decided i wanted to try and eliminate what was causing the problem. All this week the XBOX 360 HD-DVD drive has been unplugged from my machine.. for the most part its been ok, I thought worryingly it was caused by the drive itself.

Tonight, almost 1 week later the problem has just happened again.. I've had a firewire drive, and my gigabeat rockbox mp3 player plugged in via firewire and USB respectively.. they'd both been unplugged though and the main machine was running and idling fine. I came to watch some video files in Zoomplayer off my hdd.. all was well.. i went to navigating around directories again, everything working fine only to be met as i reached My Computer level with a stalled window.. all grey, not updating... thankfully i had a few other explorer windows open and i noticed that they were all working fine.. I started typing into their address bars to navigate to each of my drives.. going to c:\ worked fine.. going to d:\ hung the explorer window (this is my Benq DD DW1650 DVD-RW drive [showing as a SCSI CdRom Device in Device Manager] which all the time i've been having problems has had the Command And Conquer 3 game DVD inserted).

With another window down i moved to another explorer window and typed in e:\ this also hung the window (this is my Plextor CD-RW PX-W2410A drive, again showing as SCSI CdRom Device).

I managed to kill firefox by asking it to open a file, and selecting the current path which effectively shows you your entire computer in a dropdown.

Finally i used command prompts to complete the traversal of drives.. the remaining drive letters were HDD partitions and they were all accessible.. telling the command prompt to go to D:\ or E:\ hung them as the explorer windows were hung.

The specs of my machine are

Gigabyte GA 965P-DQ6
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 @ stock speed
2gig of Geil memory
EVGA Geforce 8800 GTX
afore mentioned optical drives
2xSamsung 500gig SATA drives
1xSamsung 250gig SATA drive

relevant software installed (and potentially running most of the time)

EDSET nod32 anti-virus
Sunbelt kerio personal firewall
Speedfan
PowerDVD
WinDVD
Nvidia DVD
Zoomplayer
Steam
Skype
Trillian

After the process of elimination earlier, detailed above (probably in too much detail, sorry but i wanted to be thorough) I am starting to think that AnyDVD HD could be causing the problem some how seeing as how only optical drives seem to be locked up.. having started to remember that the C&C3 disk has been inserted all this time I also wonder if somehow its copy protection (if it has any) could also be potentially at fault. I was wondering if i can untick auto startup for anydvd, and if even though in demo this will be respected (it warns that settings wont be saved).. or if i kill the application as soon as i'm booted am I assured that AnyDVD HD is completely out of the way.

I'm assuming my optical drives showing as SCSI cd-rom devices is due to them being wrapped in AnyDVD's drivers, and so even though i can have the app killed that wrapping will still be occuring.

Is it possible that if something locks up or times out in AnyDVD that windows will stop being able to get a response and hence hang?

I'll be happy to run some debug builds to try and identify any potential problem via an extensive log file... I am very very interested in buying AnyDVD as i see it forming the basis of my HTPC in the HD era, but I am very frustrated with such a fresh machine having problems that require a force shutdown whenever explorer and windows locks up due to this problem.

Hope you can help me, thanks for your time.. and the great program.

 

[jimbobuk]

Oh, and perhaps most importantly.. I'm running AnyDVD HD 6.1.4.3

 

[jimbobuk]

is this kind of problem at all possible via AnyDVD?

I've disabled anydvd starting at boot time, and a new my computer window is a lot faster to appear and display the contents, before u really felt a delay.. and whenever it would get locked up that delay just carried on indefinately.

I'll be happy if i can only run the program when i need to play a disk, should limit the potential of it causing a problem with the machine.

Would like to be sure on things before the demo expires but i guess thats unrealistic. Is there a better place to have a discussion about this with the developers?

Cheers

 

[roog]

IMHO, in the bleeding edge world of PowerDVD Ultra and AnyDVD HD, you need to apply the engineering principle KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid). I've built several computers using similar configurations to yours and have encountered problems along the way as well. Here are my recommendations:

1) First, if you decide to do this and it fails, post here and I will try to help you.
2) To begin with, disconnect any external peripherals and remove any internal expansion cards that you don't need for video, audio, or networking.
3) Install a fresh copy of Windows XP. If you run into any problems with activation make the call to Microsoft India to get it fixed (If you explain why you're calling and that you have installed XP on only one computer, they're actually very nice).
4) Install the drivers that came with your motherboard.
5) Run Windows Update repeatedly until you have installed all of the updates.
6) Download and install the latest bios and drivers from your motherboard manufacturer's website.
7) Download and install the latest drivers from your graphics card chipset manufacturer (in your case NVidia).
8) If needed, download and install drivers for any other expansion cards that you left in from step 2.
9) Run Windows Update again just to make sure you have everything.
10) Install the latest version of AnyDVD HD.
11) Connect the XBOX 360 drive and answer the windows driver installation prompts to download the driver from the internet.
12) Install PowerDVD Ultra 7.3 (I recommend using version 2605b with the 2605n patch applied because I've just started using the latest version and can't yet recommend it).
13) Until you've tested everything thoroughly, don't install any other software that is not absolutely needed.
14) Leave the system alone until you've ripped and played a sufficient number of HD movies. Restart multiple times during testing.
15) If everything works you can start installing your other hardware and applications, but only do one at a time and test thoroughly after each installation.

Regards and Best of Luck!

 

[jimbobuk]

thanks for your help, i'll try to follow the advice where I can. The thing is the install is very very fresh anyway, with little installed. There are no extra cards installed aside from my graphics cards, all drivers and bios are the latest available.

I could understand it if there is a problem whilst playing but i've had a problem just in normal windows operation without running any HD dvd software (without any hd media in, heck without the HD-DVD drive connected). I am hopeful that having AnyDVD NOT running until i need it will remove the problem to only when i'm actually trying to use it. I've not had my XBOX360 drive installed for 2 weeks now, and i've had the problem once since as i described above.

I do seriously wonder if the C&C3 disk has somehow eventually made AnyDVD get stuck.. I assume it has some copy protection installed... its either this or perhaps it trying to work with either optical drive.

The big thing is the delay when just calling My Computer for the first time. With ANYDVD running its 1-2 seconds delay when first appearing.. i assume anydvd is doing stuff with the disk before presenting windows with the actual disk inserted... its something in this thats perhaps locking up leaving windows completely broken with that process not returning.

Thanks for the tips though, i will try getting more updates, but i think i had them all.. not sure if i tried updating with the drive connected.

What kind of problems have you had with a machine when its not worked well? something similar to the hanging windows i've had?

Cheers

 

[roog]

thanks for your help, i'll try to follow the advice where I can. The thing is the install is very very fresh anyway, with little installed. There are no extra cards installed aside from my graphics cards, all drivers and bios are the latest available.

I could understand it if there is a problem whilst playing but i've had a problem just in normal windows operation without running any HD dvd software (without any hd media in, heck without the HD-DVD drive connected). I am hopeful that having AnyDVD NOT running until i need it will remove the problem to only when i'm actually trying to use it. I've not had my XBOX360 drive installed for 2 weeks now, and i've had the problem once since as i described above.

I do seriously wonder if the C&C3 disk has somehow eventually made AnyDVD get stuck.. I assume it has some copy protection installed... its either this or perhaps it trying to work with either optical drive.

The big thing is the delay when just calling My Computer for the first time. With ANYDVD running its 1-2 seconds delay when first appearing.. i assume anydvd is doing stuff with the disk before presenting windows with the actual disk inserted... its something in this thats perhaps locking up leaving windows completely broken with that process not returning.

Thanks for the tips though, i will try getting more updates, but i think i had them all.. not sure if i tried updating with the drive connected.

What kind of problems have you had with a machine when its not worked well? something similar to the hanging windows i've had?

Cheers

Leaving a disc in the drive will slow down windows startup. It also causes anydvd to scan the disc, when it starts, and that slows down startup as well. To avoid this you can disable autostart under settings, and then run it manually when you want to backup a movie. You'll still have the delay in the windows startup though.

FYI, Slysoft will soon be releasing it's version of Game Jackal which should let you copy C&C3 to your hard drive and eliminate the slow windows startup as well.

 

[Jibberjabba]

roog,

Is that true? Slysoft are releasing a product that does the same thing as Game Jackal?

If so, where did you hear about it, and ....that would be very cool!!!:agree:

Sorry, didn't mean to hijack your thread.

EDIT: Never mind - found it!

 

[jimbobuk]

Thanks again.

I've got autostart turned off and thankfully its remembered it even though its the demo version (which says settings wont be remembered).

Its definitely made things faster.. I see the scan at the beginning but i reckon there is some delay to anydvd passing through the contents of the DVD as the delay occurs repeatedly when opening a new My Computer window.

I'm hopeful that it wont happen again whilst its disabled.. and then i guess just hope it doesn't happen much when i want to try and use it.

I want to use it to play HD-DVDs not rip them.. its not even required as my card is HDCP compliant but it did seem to help playing one particular disk, and i know if the new wave of disks get cracked it will continue to be a tool to let you play your disks as you should be able to do.

Can anyone from slysoft comment on if they've experienced a bug like this freezing and locking up optical drives, i'd love to get the official line on it... if it was something that had been fixed in earlier versions in certain scenarios then at least i'll know its possible it could be the cause, and not something fundamental with my fresh install and/or hardware.

Cheers