Solved System/Windows 7 Lockup During DVD Playback

[OMNIOMEGA10]

For many months I've been putting up with this annoying & very puzzling issue & have attempted to toubleshoot it many times to no success.

Problem: On some days, when I play DVD videos on a media player, (I've tried WMP12, Corel WinDVD 2010 Pro, & ArcSoft TMT 5) about 10-60 minutes into the video the system would lockup. The HDD activity light would be off (no disk activity but HDD still running) & the num lock on the keyboard is frozen (therefore, Windows is frozen). This lockup only occurs when I play DVD videos. Also, there are sometimes several days when I could play DVD videos through fine. So this lockup seems quite random, but it keeps coming back. Sometimes the lockup occurs twice in a day, after I restarted the pc & played the DVD again. The event viewer does not log any possible errors, since it counts as a unexpected shutdown (I have to use the power button).
I have no external codecs packs installed. The internet is not connected during DVD playback. I have all latest Windows 7 x64 updates & SP1.

Programs Installed: Adobe (Air, Flash Player 10, Photoshop CS5, Reader 10.1), ArcSoft TMT 5, Avast Free AV, PowerArchiver 2010, Creative Console Launcher, Logitech SetPoint, MS (Office 2007, .NET Framework 4, all Visual C++ Redist 2005-2010, NVIDIA System Monitor, Raxco PerfectDisk 11 (for HDD only).

Latest x64 Drivers Installed:
GPU-Forceware v275.33
M/B-nForce v15.58
Sound Card-X-Fi Titanium v2.17.0008

Things I have tried to attempt to solve it but didn't work (still had several lockups after weeks of testing DVDs):
1. Changed from WMP12 to Corel WinDVD 2010 to ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre.
2. Changed my Samsung RAM to new Kingston RAM. Set driver control panels to default settings (NVIDIA & Creative).
3. Disabled all startups & non-windows services (clean boot).
4. Reinstalled Win 7 x64 + SP1 all latest updates & drivers. Then tried WMP12 only.
5. Changed from HDD to SSD, installed OS + SP1 all latest updates & drivers on it. Then tried both WMP12 & ArcSoft TMT 5.

And yet the problem still persists . What is this issue (hardware or software)? What does the HDD activity light remaining off mean (is it due to Windows freezing)? Any suggested possible solutions would be highly appreciated, since I like to watch movies on my pc & it used to play DVDs fine. Thanks in advance.

 

[seth500]

When the last time you cleaned the PC? It sounds like it might be getting hot the cpu you might try getting some compressed air from a local walmart or something and blowing out the fans and fins of the cpu fan and psu and anything else that's dirty. This has happened to me when overheating occurs..

 

[OMNIOMEGA10]

The temps of CPU are normal & its usage is only 15% for each core during playback. GPU temp is normal too. I've already cleaned the fans before I did the Windows 7 reinstall.

Once I had the DVD running in the background & I left system resource monitor in front to check the CPU usage, RAM usage, & disk usage. I noticed the lockup would not be instant if I did something else (such as pressing around with the media player settings). The movie would slowdown (the video & audio slows to a crawl) for 2 secs & then the lockup occurs (HDD light off, after leaving it for 15mins it was still frozen). However, prior to that moment, the usage of the CPU, RAM, & disk are not spiking up or having any issues.

It appears it has to be something thats causing this issue, which has been carried to each install.

Perhaps it could be the Creative Sound Drivers, but there isn't any newer version since 2010 & I can play games fine.
It could be one of the Windows updates, but that would mean at least a few other people would have this issue.

So if its not the:
- OS (reinstalled it)
- Drivers (got new forceware drivers, can't be the sound card drivers as they run fine)
- Startups/services (tried disabling them)
- HDD/SATA Ports (changed to SSD, tried different ports)
- RAM (changed them)
- Temps/Usage (all normal)
- Power Options (already set them so that the system doesn't sleep or turn off parts)
- Media Player (changed between 3 different ones)

Could it be the DVD drive? Is it even possible for the DVD drive to freeze Windows during playback on some days?

I'm quite surprised after doing all these things, the lockup is still there!

 

[OMNIOMEGA10]

If the HDD activity light remains off during a lockup, is that due to Windows freezing? Because I've read that people usually experience freezes when the light is full on.

 

[OMNIOMEGA10]

Any ideas? Could the DVD drive cause the OS to freeze?

 

[Shark007]

as strange as it may seem, try uninstalling the Logitech SetPoint software.

 

[OMNIOMEGA10]

@Shark007
So do I use the MS mouse driver instead? What conflict was there between the Logitech SetPoint & DVD playback... just curious if you know of something.

 

[OMNIOMEGA10]

I've installed a new Blu-ray Drive and I now play all movies fine from it. It was the DVD Drive causing the lockups!