video hardware error

I have never had a problem playing DVDs on my laptop, but I recently bought a copy of The Dark Knight which crashed my laptop. I returned it for another copy of the same movie, still crashed my laptop. Overall, it has crashed my laptop 5 times and never has played farther than the short scene after you click "play movie". there are no windows updates in the way of video playing, and like I said I have never had a problem before, so I have no idea whats going on. I did buy these DVDs on sale, $4.50 from Target, so maybe the disks are lower quality...?

I dont think this will help unless you actually see the text files (I dont know if that would help either, theres a lot of stuff and it looks pretty hard to sort out), but the problem details say-
Files that help describe the problem:
WD-20110104-1939.dmp
sysdata.xml
WERInternalMetadata.xml

Since this issue, do other DVDs still play ok?

James

ya, ive played about 5 after trying The Dark Knight

Obviously the disc(s), for whatever reason. Might be interesting to know if it plays in other players. Another interesting experiment might be to try a rental or a copy not from target in your laptop.

At least you know that your drive is OK.

James

I thought I put enough info, I guess not haha. I did test it, and it plays on my parents laptop and the family xbox. havent tested it on an actual DVD player (I can do so if you think its important, but I imagine it would play). When it was in my laptop, after the "here we go" (the short clip from the movie after clicking play movie) the screen would alternate going black then bright gray, like it was trying to get it to work. But then every single time a blue screen would occur.

Short of a firmware update for your drive (if available, and could hose the drive...), I don't see where you can do much about it. I would chekc to see that the disc is clean, although given that you've tried two copies, I doubt that will help.

You may get better results here:

Movies and TV Shows On Disc and Downloaded Forum at AVForums.com

Although the address states movies-tv...this is actually the Bluray & DVD forum. You may want to bookmark the site and peruse all the forums ther. Great place for HTPC, Home Theaters, Audio, whatever.

James

I recently tried my friends version of the dark knight, it also crashed my computer, still with video hardware error showing up. what can i do to fix this!

Also, I want to get my digital copy of Inception but when i get to the download option it won't let me click it. does anyone know why this is or how to actually get a digital copy?

Finally, another weird thing- my comp has little free space left, around 10GB. sometimes when I boot up my comp it goes from 10 to like 14GB. are files being deleted or what is going on?

WebMattR said:

Firstly, I would look into an updated video card driver. If you've recently updated your driver, then I suggest rolling back. Secondly, look into the security that's placed on the disk. It might require you to run it from their software, rather than from Windows Media Player.

I don't know who made the DVD, but I'd contact them. That's an issue with your license, I'd guess.

I'll handle the third issue in the other thread you made.

can i download a free updated video card driver?