First off, get rid of Real Player, it takes over your system like crazy. Windows Media Player and Kazaa's Theater thing are the same. Kazaa just embeds WMP into itself to do the playback. And Kazaa is full of spyware, get rid of it too. Divx Player is OK, but pretty limited, only really being able to play Divx and MPEG-1 files with MPEG audio. Probably the best media player for Windows around is Media Player Classic ( http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=82303&package_id=84358&release_id=217279 ). Then you can just add in the latest ffdshow ( http://athos.leffe.dnsalias.com/ ) for all your decoding needs, and you've got a free and capable setup.
But your problem sounds heat related to me. The fact that it only happens after a few minutes of activity only makes it seem more likely. Try taking the cover off of your system and pointing a small fan into the innards to help increase air circulation. See if it solves the problem with the rebooting. If not, the next guess would be an overworked power supply. While the cover's off, take a look at the specs on the sticker. In this day and age, if the output rating is anything less than 300W, it probably needs to be replaced.
I had a problem that I posted about several months ago, and although several people offered suggestions I was never able to solve the problem. However something new has come up regarding the same issue so I thought I'd post again.
Basically, I can't seem to be able to play avi files. Whenever I start to play an avi video, it will play fine for the first few minutes, then after about 5-6 minutes my computer will suddenly reboot. After the reboot I get a message saying "Windows has recovered from a serious error". It doesn't matter what program I use to play the movie (I've tried Real Player, Windows Media Player, DivX player, and the Kazaa "theater"). It doesn't matter where the video came from (I've downloaded files from Kazaa, WinMX, Overnet, Bit Torrent, and individual sites). The size the video file or the length of the video do not matter either. The only way I can avoid the problem is if I watch about 5 minutes of the video, then pause it for 3-4 minutes, then un-pause and watch 5 more minutes, then pause it again, etc etc.
As I said, several people had suggestions for me when I first posted this problem. One person suggested that I don't have the proper codecs installed, so I went to DivX's site and downloaded a bunch, but the problem persisted. Someone else suggested I make sure no other programs were running when I was playing an avi file. I tried turning off every program possible (including disconnecting my modem so I could turn off my virus scan, internet protection, popup blocker, etc)- didn't work. Another person suggested that I only try watching avi files after a fresh reboot, but that didn't help either. Someone thought the problem might be caused by spyware or parasites, but I've used AdAware, Spybot-Search & Destroy, Housecall, and Stinger and still no luck.
I kind of gave up on finding a solution, until just a couple days ago when I happened to be browsing for information about WinMX and I came upon a website that had some info that seemed relevant to my problem. Below is a cut & paste of some of that info:
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WinMX causes my computer to restart!?
I've heard this problem reported many times since the release of the v3.xx series of WinMX, here's what's known so far...
A number of users who use either a Linksys LNE100TX model 5 or Netgear FA311/FA312 network interface card, and run WinMX by making a Primary connection to the network are reporting the combination causing a fatal error in the operating system, which can cause it to abruptly restart. Quite often the system will restart after running WinMX for only a few seconds or minutes after a brief BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) message appears.
By default, Windows 2000/XP are set to automatically restart the computer on such a fatal error, which can make it difficult to catch the error displayed so as to get an idea as to the exact problem occurring. In order to prevent the operating system from restarting automatically in this way you need to change a Windows Start-up and Recovery option...
1. Right-click the My Computer icon on the desktop, and select Properties.
2. The System Properties dialog should open.
3. Click the Advanced tab, then Startup and Recovery...
4. Uncheck the Automatically Reboot option.
5. Click O.K. to accept the change.
This will allow you to view the error message that gets displayed when the system crash occurs.
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Now, I had been having this problem since before I ever used WinMX (I started out filesharing with Kazaa), but I thought I would try it anyway. So, I made the change, and I started watching some videos. I actually was able to watch half a dozen episodes of TV programs before my computer gave me a blue error screen. I think it said "MEMORY_MANAGEMENT" (I say "I think" because some of the text on the very far left hand side was cut off, so it actually appeared to say "ORY_MANAGEMENT". Below that it said "Technical Information" followed by a bunch of strings of numbers (which I have, copied down) and it said it was performing a physical dump of memory. Then I restarted the computer. I also copied down the the "error signature" that it displayed afterwards.
Today I was running Kazaa and I was using the avi previewer to watch a few minutes of a partially-downloaded file. After only about 4 minutes the computer rebooted. This time the blue screen error message was [cut-off]L_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL . I went back to the website to find more info about the error messages I had received. More from the site is c&p'ed below:
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It seems that the error most frequently reported by users is...
DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
After some investigating it turns out that the error commonly relates to Network Interface devices, and most often a driver related problem (the software used to control the hardware). Even though the users reporting the error had the most up to date drivers from Linksys and Netgear installed, still the drivers were no good as they continued to allow the error to occur.
A solution to the problem with the Linksys cards was found in the form of a replacement driver not from Linksys themselves, but from the actual manufacturers of the chipset on the Linksys card (ADMtek).
The ADMtek website is here: ttp://www.admtek.com.tw/
Replacement drivers for the Linksys LNE100TX model 5 (which use the AN983B controller) cards can be found here.
(98/ME/2000/XP drivers - Microsoft certified)
Ensure that your model is the version 5 of the Linksys card before installing these drivers otherwise they won't work.
Credit goes out to Gripweed for tracking down the above drivers.
If you find that you haven't one of these Linksys LNE100TX cards installed on your system yet are getting the same DRIVER_IRQL error reported by the Windows BSOD, then check that you have the most up to date drivers for your network devices, usually network interface cards, Cable\DSL modem cards, etc.
Some other known problematic cards are...
Linksys NC100 - (IIRC the above AN983B drivers are suitable for this model)
Netgear FA311 - (try this driver (thanks to Kaisolin for this fix))
Netgear FA312 - (no known driver solution)
If the above methods are not appropriate for your machine (or too much like hard work), then the best (and easiest) solution is to force WinMX to only make a Secondary connection to the network. This should help to lessen the frequency of the crashes or more likely cure them. To configure WinMX to make a Secondary connection to the network rather than Primary simply go to the Networks page in WinMX and select the 'Make a Secondary connection to the network' option.
This issue seems to have been noted by the developers in an interview with Slyck.com...
"Some systems have software-based firewalls that are unable to cope with high levels of small packet/diversely sourced traffic, and other systems have driver or general network efficiency issues that are only apparent under stress. In most of these situations, the problem is solved by using a secondary connection to the network." - Slyck.com interview with Kevin Hearn.
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My problem at this point is that I'm too computer-illiterate to know what to do next. I don't know what kind of network interface card I have, or how to find out. It says to "check that you have the most up to date drivers for your network devices" but I don't know which items make up "network devices". I *have* had problems with my cable modem before- my internet connection will randomly die every now and then, and I'll get a message saying that a USB device is not recognized; when I check the device manager it will say there are no drivers installed for the modem. If I reboot, the modem will work fine and when I check the properties in device manager it will show the driver files. It doesn't seem like configuring WinMX to make a secondary connection instead of primary would be the solution because the problem occurs even when I'm not using WinMX, and it occurred even before I ever started using WinMX- but as I say, I don't really know anything about it. So... I'm stuck again.
BTW here is the website I was using:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/j.buchanan/index.html?faq-restart.html

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