why does my computer do this???? plz help?

Question

sometimes , usually when i am watching a music videos on windows media player the video goes all jumpy and then the computer restarts itself. When it comes back on it says 'The system has recovered from a serious error.' but gives no more infomation, it has been happening quite frequently recently and im quite concerned. Is this serious and why does it happen? (my music videos dont have viruses)

I have the latest version of windows media player and i dont use P2P networks. It doesnt happen every time i play the videos just sometimes

I did the online scan and it said
'This system performs extremely well on our benchmarks and appears to be among the fastest systems available!'
And when i right click on my computer there isnt an 'advanced tab'

Answer 1

This could be cause by a couple of things.

First off, if you are downloading these videos from the internet using P2P software such as (LimeWire, Grokster, Kazaa, etc.) you are doing two things. One, you are breaking the law and violating copyright infringement and Two, you are opening your computer up to "corrupted" files. Many of these videos contain empty or "bad" bits of data embedded into the videos to prevent a user from COPYING them correctly. This process is know as DRM (Digital Rights Management),..a form of "encryption" you can say.

If you have corrupted video files in your computer you may have corrupted other Windows (Operating Files) on your computer. Your best bet is to attempt to reload Windows on your system to "repair" any system file that has been "compromised". Or, your system may contain a "rootkit" which IS a form of virus/spyware file. Double-check your system by going to WWW.PCPITSTOP.COM and running their "online" virus scan to be sure your system is clean!

If this continues to happen while using the computer normally AFTER it passes an online virus scan, you may be encountering possible hardware failure with your video. If it's an "onboard" video chip try disabling it in the BIOS (system setup) and add another card through your AGP slot or PCI (if AGP is not present on motherboard).

You can stop your computer from auto-restarting on you so you can better diagnose the problem by Right-Clicking on MY COMPUTER, Left-Click on ADVANCED TAB, then Left-Click on SETTINGS under STARTUP AND RECOVERY section. Uncheck AUTOMATICALLY RESTART under SYSTEM FAILURE.

Also, generally speaking, Windows Media Player does NOT "restart" your system with "error" messages when it needs upgrading. It will pop up a configuration box which scans your settings and "suggests" what you need to do.

Hope this helps!

I saw your response and now believe that you are experiencing video hardware failure. Try my suggestion above regarding that! (I would STILL do the online scan though)

Answer 2

Most likely the video that you are watching takes advantage of features that your version of the software doesn't support, or something that's corrupt in your version.

There are two schools of thought.
1) Upgrade your media player to the latest version. This assumes that the upgrade will repair any problems that already exist.

2) Reinstall the last service pack for your computer. This assumes that the problem may be in Windows itself. Reinstalling the last service pack will repair any broken components. Then run all of the windows updates again to bring the system back up to the current state.

Now you can try your videos again.

Answer 3

Could be a ram problem. The next time your are viewing one of these videos, click Ctrl+Alt+Del. That will open the Task Manager. Now click on the "Performance" tab and take a look at the amount of ram that is being used. If is using all, or just about all of the ram that you have installed, then we have found the problem.

Answer 4

it might mean that you need to up grade the windows media player