VLC seems to crash my PC, any advice?

Hi, I've had my new PC a while now, been running Windows 7 with no problems, but what I've noticed is that when I try and play anything in VLC media player, it functions fine for a while but then causes my PC to crash.
The screen will suddenly go black (despite the monitor remaining on and not going into standby) and for a few seconds whatever sound was coming from VLC, eg a man talking, will "stutter" extremely fast for a few seconds (see YouTube - How about adding some STUTTER EFFECTS to your DJ Sound Drops for the kind of sound I mean) and then cut to silence.

It's really weird, because the PC is still on, the LED light on top is still indicating that it's on, but it's completely unresponsive - even when I hit the power button, there's no effect, so I have to turn it off then on again at the wall socket

Other than that, it's completely functional - doesn't seem to be a driver problem as even Blu-ray quality video files play fine in HP MediaSmart Video, the default media player.

Any advice is appreciated, I just want to be able to use VLC without constantly crashing my PC!

Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling VLC?

Could you do us a favour and fill out your system specs please

hybridfan said:

Could you do us a favour and fill out your system specs please

Click to expand...

The summary that Speccy gave:

Operating System
MS Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
CPU
AMD Athlon II X4 620 31 °C
Propus 45nm Technology
RAM
4.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 666MHz 9-9-9-24
Motherboard
PEGATRON CORPORATION VIOLET6 (CPU 1)
Graphics
HP 2009 Series Wide LCD Monitor on NVIDIA GeForce G210
2304MB GeForce G210 (Unknown) 51 °C
Hard Drives
500GB Western Digital WDC WD50 00AAKS-65V0A SCSI Disk Device (IDE)
Optical Drives
HL-DT-ST BDDVDRW CH10L SCSI CdRom Device
GXAJKF S5YZ0PYR SCSI CdRom Device
Audio
Realtek High Definition Audio

Jonathan_King said:

Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling VLC?

Click to expand...

I'd rather not but I guess yeah, I'll give that a try right now...

VLC 1.0.5 Is what i have installed and works great with win7 mutch better then the build before

It may be worth looking at the audio / video output options

Tools> Preferences > Audio

It may be a incorrect setting, or even a codec conflict with the HP MediaSmart Video app.

What source file type are you trying to watch?

smarteyeball said:

It may be worth looking at the audio / video output options

Tools> Preferences > Audio

It may be a incorrect setting, or even a codec conflict with the HP MediaSmart Video app.

What source file type are you trying to watch?

Click to expand...

Tbh I'd be really surprised if it was an audio problem causing it to crash, I think the weird sound stuttering is just a brief side effect of the computer suddenly cutting out.

As for the file type, most recently it was when I played an MKV file (i.e. a Bluray rip, so high bitrate etc) but it also happens when I'm playing anything as average as an AVI file. I haven't tested it to see if any particular file type makes it crash faster, but could it be that VLC is just screwing with the RAM or something and causing a crash?

(PS don't know if RAM is actually what it would be affecting, my PC knowledge covers programs and not much else )

Check if windows media player is screwing up as well (Windows media player can play all avi files just fine). If it is also, then it is your graphics driver that is causing your problem. Otherwise, it is vlc.

Similar Problem Here

I'm having a similar poblem here. I had Windows XP on this PC before and no problems. Upgraded to Windows 7, and when playing video in Media Player Classic Home Cinema (MPC), the PC occasionally hangs. Nothing works, no sound, the keyboard caps lock light doesn't even change. Resetting is the only way to carry on.

I've had the problem with WMP once, though not as frequently as with MPC (so I use WMP for now). I've also had it with Youtube vidoes once (though I do watch alot of videos, and only happened once so far). No problems with games though (so far Geometry Wars at 1080p and Bob Came in Pieces - not the most demanding games).

I'm thinking it could be to do with a GPU based video acceleration fault, as once (though I've never seen it after any other hangups when checking) the Event Viewer shown that UVD (on recent ATI GPU for offloading Video playback) had started about when it hung.

I have the latest ATI drivers for my GPU, the 10.2 hotfix for ATI HD 2600 Pro AGP (regular drivers don't install on AGP cards anymore, need hotfix version of drivers).

snap!

Got the same problem, exactly.

I have just bought a new pc, with windows 7 on, 64bit, and so was worried that all sorts of things might be to blame.

My initial thoughts were that the graphics card was on the blink, as the problem manifested as no video, but with the sound still running on the film i was watching.
Then it occurred to me that the computer had sat there with the desktop showing for hours while i was doing other stuff and that each crash was when watching video via VLC. Been using this program for years and it has always been spot on, so not convinced its the problem. Had 5 crashes in about 3 hours of viewing; had to soft reset to get back.

Graphics card i am using is ati 5770, but i am using the drivers shipped with the pc, so this is my next port of call.

Ive not got anything technical to add at this point; just thought id back up the poster's observation. When i fix it i'll get back.

Rus said:

Graphics card i am using is ati 5770, but i am using the drivers shipped with the pc, so this is my next port of call.

Click to expand...

I'd start there for sure.

Otherwise, try seeing what happens when you use DirectX Video Output for the renderer.




It's definitely not VLC the app that's the issue.


Good luck

It was the drivers. Updated to March 2010 drivers and the the problems with VLC were eliminated. The drivers that i had originally been using were not that old (new pc) so i am not totally convinced. Installing again may have just sorted something crud that was kicking around. But anyway, thats the way to if you are having VLC crashes. I agree with the other guy; been using it for years, its fabulous and its the last thing to suspect if you are having problems. cheers