Divx + Xvid = It just keeps getting worse for my PC

[Just1n]

I have quite a few Divx's and Xvids on my computer, and ofcourse I would love to play them on my PC instead of burning them to a DVD-R cd everytime I want to watch it, right? Ofcourse I do..But will my PC cooperate? Yes, but it'll half ass it also. So I download Divx player bundle, and Xvid codec pack, and smr patch (was told to by someone helping me on irc), Install them, Restart, and goto play movie.avi, after the restart I goto d:\movie\themovie open movie.avi (with windows media player 11 and discover that it opens, and the sound starts 8) ..as I figured maybe it was lagging because I'm opening it for the first time and its doing its "voodoo"..but after playing for 4 seconds of black screen the WMP stops responding! (I figured it was just windows..well, being windows) I tryed to close it through task manager, it went away. Within 3 seconds or so the mouse freezes and my motherboard goes "BEEP!" I turn it back on and let windows load, I login. I acidently opened the Nero "Showtime" program instead of WMP. It plays for 3 seconds and freezes but I can still hear the sound going perfect, and never skipping a note! So I know if I close the frozen program it'll freeze my computer and I'll have to restart, so then I opened WMP, in a last ditch desperate moment, and tryed to open a different movie I know works, I open movie2.avi and all of the sudden it plays the movie, perfect quality, perfect sound, but video gets a little choppy from the lag of the frozen video. I restarted into safe mode, uninstalled everything video related (codecs and players) and restarted. I log back in, open WMP figuring it would work because it worked before I restarted minus the other frozen movie, set like a king! right? No. after I pick my eyes off the ground, I go open Nero showtime, and it happens again! The video plays in perfect order... Am I stuck like chuck and you know what outta luck?

This is what is shown on my Control panel -> Add/Remove Programs list:
Minus Games and Windows update files.

Ad-Aware SE
Adobe Reader 8
Adobe Shockwave Player
Apple software Update
ATI Display Driver 6.14.10.6497
AVG 7.5
FlashFXP
ISOBuster 2.0
iTunes
J2SE Runtime Enviroment 5.0 Update 11
Microsoft Compression client pack 1.0 for Windows XP
Mirc
FireFox
Nero 7 Premium
Nero Supps
Norton Partition Magic
PFConfig 1.0.144
Quicktime
Realtek AC97 Audio
Steam
Windows Media Format 11 runtime
Windows Media Player 11
WinRAR archiver

My computer specs are: (old but works)

MB: Gigabyte GA-7N400
CPU: AMD 2600+ (1913 mhz)
Ram: 512mb
HDD: 80GB Seagate, 160GB Seagate
GFX: Radeon 7000 64MB (din-o-saur)
DVD: Sony DVD-RW AW-Q170A (18x)
Win: Windows XP Pro SP2

[jagabo]

Only one program at a time can use the graphics card's video overlay feature. The fact the first player locks up and the second player plays normally indicates a problem with video overlay. Install the latest WHQL drivers for your graphics card.

[Just1n]

These are the latest for my graphics card, because ATI is worthless and no longer makes them any more.

The first player I open locks up, the second one aways plays, no matter if I start Ner Showtime first then WMP, or vice versa.

[jagabo]

As a short term solution you can turn off the overlay feature. Or use a player that lets you select other ways of getting the picture on screen. Media Player Classic and KMPlayer come to mind.

[Just1n]

Results from WMP classic (mplayer2.exe)

Unable to download an appropriate decompressor. (Error=80040200)

Unable to download an appropriate decompressor. (Error=80040200)

I'm guessing I have to download a missing codec, but what codec is the right one?

[Just1n]

I installed newest ATI drivers and Klite codec pack, used WMP classic (supplied by winXP) and it froze.. Is it possible to play these movies on Slackware 11?

[jagabo]

Turn of video overlay.

[redwudz]

And I would also try VLC media player to rule out codec problems. It also has some overlay adjustments that might help. WMP seems to have more than it's share of problems, not really dependable.

K-Lite Codec pack by itself can cause a whole lot more problems. It has a known history of messing up PCs bad enough to require a re-install of the OS to fix.

[Just1n]

And I would also try VLC media player to rule out codec problems. It also has some overlay adjustments that might help. WMP seems to have more than it's share of problems, not really dependable.

Thanks, the VLC works perfect after I tinkered with a few of the settings.

[alwayssummer]

Just1n... do you ever backup DVDs on your SONY drive. I'm doing backups w/ DVD Decrypter and my speed seems to top out around 3x . Really slow compared to my old Plextor drive, but the DVD read laser on that one died . I did a search by model number and your post was the only thing I found.

[jagabo]

Go to Device Manager and make sure your DVD drive and hard drives are running in DMA mode.

[alwayssummer]

Just checked, I'm in DMA mode.

[jagabo]

You ought to start your own thread with an descriptive title. You're more likely to get responses from people who know that drive.