Bizarre reboots when accessing .avi files

[Dan White]

Hi,

I have a really annoying and bizarre problem. Since I reinstalled XP Pro at
Christmas, I have had a nightmare with certain .avi files, in particular
ones that have been obtained via BitTorrent.

With many avi files, when I try to play them, my system immediately reboots.
No warning, no BSOD, no errors, nothing. It's as if someone just pulled the
plug. When I restart, there's nothing in the event log, no crash dump,
nothing to give me a clue as to what is going on. Occasionally, even
clicking on the file is enough to cause the computer to reboot.

I have tried opening the offending files in programs such as GSpot to find
out if it is a nonexistent codec error. Usually GSpot reports that the file
is playable (and often Xvid encoded), but if I click on the "render" button,
it then reboots.

I'm at a loss to explain it. At first I thought it might have been a
corruption in the "Thumbs.db" file, which caused it to crash when trying to
read the thumbnail info. I deleted *all* the Thumbs.db files and tried
again, but I'm still getting the same problem.

Does anyone have any suggestions please? I wouldn't mind if it crashed in a
controlled manner, but a spontaneous reboot is getting very annoying.

Ta,

Dan

 

[Pop]

I just went thru something very similar to that which turned out to be a
corrupted video driver after a LOT of hair pulling!

When the machine finishes its reboot, isn't there a message about what kind
of error it suffered? Unless it's being done my malware, there should be an
error message when it restarts. I forget what it's called now, but XP also
have a version of bootlog that's useful with that kind of thing.

Pop

 

[Dan White]

I just went thru something very similar to that which turned out to be a
corrupted video driver after a LOT of hair pulling!

When the machine finishes its reboot, isn't there a message about what
kind of error it suffered? Unless it's being done my malware, there
should be an error message when it restarts. I forget what it's called
now, but XP also have a version of bootlog that's useful with that kind of
thing.

Pop

Hi Pop,

No, there's no message at all, nothing. The event log just stops before the
crash, then carries on as normal.

I run Spybot, Adaware and virus checking every day, so it's definitely not
malware. I'm pretty sure it's some codec or video driver problem as you say,
but I can't nail it down.