Vista Playing Videos Issues

[dfnkt]

OK I am working with a computer here that is running Windows Vista 32bit with an Asus Mobo, 1GB ram (i didnt build it), amd 4050e, and an nvidia geforce 6200SE Turbocache.

The customer brought the PC to me because vista was failing to boot. After troubleshooting the issue back to a fault in the MBR we agreed to start from scratch. That day I reinstalled Win XP and used her upgrade disc (bleh) and brought it up to Vista. Once I got all the device drivers (starting with chipset) installed, I returned the PC to her in perfect (or so we thought) working order.

She called me 2 days later and said that she was receiving an error in Windows Media Player while trying to play videos. I got the PC back and hooked it up thinking it might be a simple codec issue, no such luck. I receive a WMP error that states "Windows Media Player Cannot Play this video file because there is a problem with your video card." After installing VLC media player to test, this also does not work.

I have tried 3 different sets of NVIDIA drivers (178.24, 178.14, and 175.19) all with no changes in either WMP or VLC media player. I did uninstall all drivers and reboot into safe mode at one point and VOILA the videos play in either program. From there I uninstalled all unnecessary software and stopped several services I thought might be interfering during normal operation, no luck.

At this point I am ready to try wiping the PC and setting everything up in XP, I am believing it to be a Windows Vista issue. I have NOT tried a new video card yet as I have one laying around but it needs a PCI-E power adapter that I do not have.

Ideas? I have seemingly tried everything from new drivers and new applications to checking the BIOS for any options related to the Video settings. This one has me stumped, especially because all videos play fine in safe mode and the PC plays Youtube video fine all the time.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Sounds like not enough ram to me.

 

[dfnkt]

I have a stick I can put in and try, never really gave that a thought. Thanks

 

[dfnkt]

I have put another couple of sticks of ram that brought it up to 2.5GB, system runs a ton better but still the same tired video issue.

 

[dfnkt]

bump, anyone else want to give it a shot?

 

[accguy9009]

I would start the machine with a bootable Linux CD and determine if you can play an avi file from that OS. If you can
you should be able to determine if your problem is hardware related. I don't understand why anyone who either works on or tinkers with
computers doesn't use this method on occasion to determine if it is a "windows" issue or a hardware problem. Granted this is not going to
help you out of every situation but it should be among the tools at your disposal. It's free as well!

 

[soonerproud]

Originally posted by: dfnkt
bump, anyone else want to give it a shot?

It could just be an issue due to upgrading from XP. A clean install is possible using the upgrade disk by doing this. First you will want to install Vista from the upgrade disk with out entering in your product key. (Make certain you select only the version the customer has a product key for. This is very important!) Boot into Windows, and then start the upgrade process just like you did in XP and then enter in the product key.

You will have a nice clean install and far less issues than upgrading from XP.

 

[TheKub]

Im assuming you tried opening multiple videos? If not, it could simply be a bad avi. You can also try running sfc /scannow to make sure all the system files are in order.

 

[madh83]

It could be the video driver, the 6200se is really old, and in practice might not work well with recent drivers. See if you can get a copy of forceware drivers from the 80s or 90s and see how that works.