AVI files crashing after ~10 minutes ??

[Sophia]

Kind of a vague one, but a friend of mine is reporting .avi files crashing (BSODs) in XP Pro after about 10 minutes with different media players (WMP, Quicktime, etc.). Being outside my normal computer usage, I don't have a clue how to troubleshoot this beyond uninstalling and reinstalling the media players (already tried that to no avail) so any troubleshooting suggestions would be appreciated.

Edit: Forgot to mention this is on a Compaq Presario 1200Z (AMD Athlon) laptop

 

[gentobu]

I had a similar problem with xp pro and windows media player (I didnt try any others), but I updated via windows update and I got the latest Nvidia drivers and it went away.

 

[VBboy]

Real Player crashes my PC with a BSOD after playing for exactly 0.1 seconds. It causes an error in the Ati's videocard driver. I switched to a newer driver and the problem disappeared.

Tell him to run PRIME95 for an hour; maybe his PC is unstable in general. Also, try a different player like the Divx one.