Thinkpads Forum

I've been having some serious problems with video playback lately and am not sure if it is the driver or the card itself.

The system freezes when playing certain video files with an crash of all screens (Two screen setup on mini docking station) going blank and no apparent PC response.
Most troubling is the lack of a responsive or detectable sound card on reboot from said crash until a restart.

All crashes have occurred with Windows MediaPlayer 11 and Codec issues have be absolved since crashes are not consistent to a specific file. Just in case this may help diagnose, Bluetooth audio keeps trying to install drivers. I've just disabled in device manager having never installed as requested by OS.

I ask here because I've just fallen out of warranty.
Your help is much appreciated.

Does the Event log say anything specific about these crashes? What kind of codecs are they? Have you checked with codecs website to see if users there have reported such problems or the provider has released any kind of fix.

I know this something you don't want to hear but I am going to suggest you to put back your thinkpad to factory state and see if that makes any difference. Seems to me, two drivers are fighting over one device.

SSDP Discovery Service was disabled. Not sure why, this isn't default for XP. Log state something needed this. Re-enabling.

Thanks for tips.

More detail...this is becoming a problem. Cannot recommend T61p to siblings while my machine is faulty.

SSDP was turned on as well as associated services but still crashing.

System Log shows Errors.
"The Aspi32 service failed to start due to the following error:
The system cannot find the file specified."

Application Log shows Errors.
"The outgoing routing rule is not valid because it cannot find a valid device. The outgoing faxes that use this rule will not be routed. Verify that the targeted device or devices (if routed to a group of devices) is connected and installed correctly, and turned on. If routed to a group, verify that the group is configured correctly. Country/region code: '*' Area code: '*'"

Those are the most recent error since my last crash. As for the Application Error with fax, I haven't used fax modem or software in years. Errors above seem unrelated to video play.

Crashes occur during video playback and video files only not audio such as mp3, AAC, or OGG. Also, crashes have occurred attempting to play format AVI, MPG, or MP4.

I've switched to Nero's Showtime and video watching hasn't crashed yet while Windows Media player almost always is what seems to cause a crash...but Nero's editing software crashes as well when importing some video files. Rebooting (twice) and attempting the same play or import/edit function works fine for the identical file.

The crashes are characterized by a complete blackening of screen. If any background audio was playing in a separate program, it will be stuck in an infinite loop until I hard reboot the laptop.
Upon initial reboot, the system does not see a sound card. Hardware install process also cannot detect sound card. When the machine is rebooted again, all is normal. Again, playing with the file that had caused the crash now works fine.

It may be a CODEC issue...but not sure if a CODEC failure can cause a sound card that is nailed to the motherboard to disappear from Hardware Manager.

Is there some sort of crash log? Next crash I'll try to see remember if sound card even beeps at restart. If hardware is the issue, I'll get a DAC and have to change my opinion about Lenovo.