My Laptop freezes while playing video

[Roger Faucher]

Phanos:

I don't see anything wrong so far. I also do not see the "external" mouse. Did you run this test with the PS/2 mouse or the USB mouse? It sure looks as if the Alsp (touchpad) is conflicting with any mouse which you install.

If you haven't yet determined how to disable the Alps, I think there is a way to create hardware profiles in Control Panel. Try creating 2 profiles; one with the alps disabled and the other with it enabled. Insert the extenal mouse (I'd start testing with the PS/2 mouse), reboot, and during the reboot choose the Alps-disabled hardware profile. If that works, try to see if you still have "the bug".

Is your modem on the motherboard or a PCI card? If it's a PCI card, try removing it and re-testing.

Let us know.

Roger

[Phanos]

Roger,

Thanks for the help. My laptop does not have a ps/2 mouse port so any mouse I have tested was a usb one. The mouse appears in the device manager under "Mice and other pointing devices" as "Logitech HID-compliant Cordless Mouse". I assume that it does not appears in the IRQ because is connected to a usb port.

My laptop does have a button for disabling the touchpad. Is this what you are referring or should I tried to disable it in the device manager? In device manager (right click on the alps touchpad) my computer does not gives me the option for disabling the touchpad.

Also the modem came with the laptop so I don't know if is in on pci slot of how to remove it. I never opened my laptop before

[Con Ad · Accepted solution]

Hi there. I have exactly the same problem, although mines a desktop pc, n pretty basic. However i've searched the web all night n aready found many people with the same problem so it seems pretty common among many computers. Still trying to find a solution tho, because this is so annoying to say the least! Audio seems fine, but video wil randomly freeze n you get this recurring sound, like a scratched CD skipping. iv got latest drivers n stuff, but no luck. sometimes i wish it was a laptop, least it'd fit snug under my front wheel, wouldn't remain functional for long.

[Roger Faucher]

Phanos:

Sorry, I spaced out momentarily and was referring to your computer as if it were a desktop rather than a laptop. By all means, experiment with disabling the Alps (if you haven't already done so) and try disabling the modem.

Roger

[Phanos]

Dear Roger,

sorry for the delay to get back because I was at work. Thanks for all the help and support.

I tried disabling the modem and turning off at the same time the touchpad (with the use of the button on the touchpad, I have not found a way to disable it in the device manager), but the problem appeared again. I have tried it several times but the effects are the same. As soon as I strart a video and start moving the mouse in different direction the computer sooner or later freezes.

Didn't you find anything else in the IRQs?

Thanks

Phanos

[Sergio L]

this is such a weird problem.

so many possible solutions but absolutely none of them work!

[Phanos]

Sergio,

how long do you have this problem? Did it started when you bought the laptop or later?

Phanos

[Sergio L]

i'm assuming it started later. i didn't have a usb mouse when i first got the laptop. i did have the mouse for a while before i noticed the actual problem so i think it happened some time after i had the laptop and the mouse.

[Phanos]

Sergio,

same here. I notice it after a while I bought my first usb mouse for this laptop. I beleive the problem was there but I simply notice it later when I try to play some video file while surfing the web. Really annoying inded to say the least.

Phanos

[Roger Faucher]

Phanos:

Would you mind double-checking to see if you have the latest BIOS, firmware, and drivers installed? Please check, especially, the Alps device, USB, modem, audio, and video areas.

For XP Home:

http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/hpcpqnk/us/locate/63_5932.html#4

For XP Pro:

http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/hpcpqnk/us/locate/64_5932.html

If you download the video and play it locally (with the browser windows closed), does it still fail?

Sorry, I am now officially in straw-grasping mode.

Make a great day!

Roger

[Phanos]

Hi Roger,

again thanks for all the help. I do have all the latest drivers and utilities, as well athe latest software that came with this laptop and can be found either on the cds that came with my laptop or either on the HP website.

Also I have updated the bios for my laptop about six months ago when the HP support suggested it due to some baterry issues I had at that time.

Also I am using Windows XP professional which I load from the cd that also came with my computer.

Again thanks for all the help and a great day to all,

Phanos

[Roger Faucher]

Phanos:

What about my question:

If you download the video and play it locally (with the browser windows closed), does it still fail?

Make a great day!

Roger

[Phanos]

Roger,

it fails anyway. Even while the video is in fullscreen mode and all other windows are close. As long as I try to move the mouse a couple of times either to change the volume or just so I can see the time the movie was playing the problem occurs.

Also I tried many different programs, windows media player, powerdvd, windvd, realplayer etc with no difference.

Even when I removed the partition and reinstalled everything, I did not install any other program, just the windows media player, and the problem still occured :(

The really funny thing is that this problem does not occured in linux. I tried different movies for many hours and everything works ok. Tha is why I beleive that this problem might be occuring because of some conflit. Does anyone knows if linux are using the same IRQs are windows? Or perhaps you have any idea where someone can found this information in linux? I am using Mandriva 2006.

Again thanks a lot,

Phanos

[Con Ad]

hey ppl. i think i may have a possible solution, i went to control panel>system>Advanced>performance>advance and changed memory setting to 'system cache' it seemed 2 work with mine i think, hasn't froze once, after so far 6 hours continuos video. give it a try if u haven't already n let me no.

[Sergio L]

Con Ad,

I tried your suggestion. For the most part it worked...well, somewhat. You see, I had video playing and I could move the mouse and it didn't freeze.

And then i tried the ultimate test: trying to use the slider to fast forward and rewind...it froze! but i think your solution is better than before. Thanks for that!

[Phanos]

Hi Con Ad,

I have tried what you said and although this appears to be working ok the problem will still occurs when I tried to open many windows.

So I tried to increase the pagefile and it took more time with more open windows to freeze but eventully it did.

ALso with system cache enable I thing that there may be a slower response when trying to swap a windows.

But still this a breakthrough for me :).

Thanks a lot,

Phanos

[Con Ad]

glad its helped a little. ye, i increased pagefile to 4096, also fiddling around in WMP settings, i turned overlays off, dunno wot it is or wot it does but thats wot i done anyway. my comp still seems ok, still not frozen, only issue is that mouse plugs a little loose so thats gettting annoying but a totaly unrelated and resolvable matter. let me no how u get on anyway, hope u have some luck, i no how much of an annoying issue it is. Good luck.

[Jaromir Skyyvan]

I purchased a custom laptop online a few weeks ago, just received it back from CompUSA with my HDD data transfer all done yesterday... guess what! It has this annoying random freeze error. I haven't really tried playing video on it yet, but the error seems to occur when I'm using iTunes, or when I minimize iTunes in the midst of downloading things and using lots of programs and stuff.

System specs:
AMD Turion MT-40 CPU
1GB RAM
ATI Radeon Xpress 200P Chipset
100gb Maxtor HDD (I'm pretty sure it's Maxtor, might be Seagate)

I tried applying Con Ad's settings he described above (about switching priority to System Cache instead of Programs), so I'll see how that works out.

[Jaromir Skyyvan]

Uh huh, uh huh. I like it.

I just tried playing The Matrix Reloaded DVD from the DVD drive with one player, an episode of Naruto from the HDD on another, iTunes, and World of Warcraft for giggles. Oh, I forgot to mention in my first post, the only mouse I've evr used with this laptop is a USB Logitech MX1000 cordless... it has a touchpad, but I never use it.

Anyway, after random minimizing and maximizing and pausing and playing and scrolling through music and videos and everything, no errors or freezes or anything! =D

[Ken Long Jr]

Hi, new here but been looking for a solution for you and KIND OF myself too, problem with me is EXACTLY the OPPOSITE but this is the only place I could find even remotely close. My Problem is If I play a video with winamp, mediaplayer, almost anything, the video will NOT play and will eventually crash my system if I DONT move the mouse, if I keep the mouse moving, the video plays perfectly normal, stop moving? it freezes. All newest drivers/bios. Only thing different on MY problem is that this problem doesn't happen when I play a .mov (quicktime) file. Also, if I use the touchpad to move the mouse during video playback, it still freezes, I HAVE to use an external mouse to make video play. Any ideas?

[Phanos]

Ken Long Jr,

I am still searching for a more permanent solution than Con Ad suggested. I am not
complaining of course since now I can use my laptop a play video and music at the same time :).

Have you tried what Con Ad suggested? Perhaps that might solve your problem.

I haven't heard any problem as your own before.

Phanos

[Tom Johnson_10]

I have had the exact same problem with my NX9110 for over a year. I have tried all the updates and cannot find a solution. If anyone finds a solution to this freeze while playing video and moving mouse at the same time mail me.

[Phanos]

Hi Tom Johnson,

If I ever find a solution to this problem I will remember to post it here so others with the same problem can try to fix their problem too :).

Since we have the same laptop I need to ask you something please. Is your laptop still in warranty period? If it is you can try to give it for repair and you can report back to us if this is indeed a hardware error or not.

When I contact HP support and told me that this problem could be a hardware malfunction with the laptop I could not give mine for repair since my warranty had run out.

The funny thing is that under Linux the problem seems to disappear and everything works ok. I tried different distributions (mandriva, suse etc) under different versions and in none of them I notice the problem.

A few weeks ago I thought that I had solved the problem by uninstalling the "VIA FIR VT1211 Device Driver for Windows 2000/XP" driver. This driver is for infrared devices which I do not have on my laptop.

I came to the conclusion that this driver might be causing the problem after reading on another forum that someone's laptop (specifically a Toshiba), was freezing due to this driver since that laptop also did not had an specific infrared device.

After uninstalling my laptop worked ok for more that two days!!! After that however the problem reappeared just like that. I do not know I this is simply by pure luck but might help someone to find a solution.

If you are able to make some progress please let us know :)

Kind Regards,

Phanos

[Roger Faucher]

Hi Phanos:

Have you given any thought to adding memory to your laptop? It might be worth a try. Could you please post the amount of memory it has now? Thanks and make a great day!

Roger

[Roger Faucher]

Me again:

Crucial has pretty good pricing on memory:

http://tinyurl.com/zekh4

They say your laptop comes with 512MB of memory. You may want to consider adding 512MB or 1GB to it.

Ciao!

Roger