Member Avatar for robinhood_01

Hi All,

A couple of days ago my computer was giving me grief (audio driver conflict) so I backed up all my work onto a different hard drive and reformated the main one.

After re-installing windows xp, getting it all up-to-date and installing directX 9, plus the 77.77 Nvidia video drivers, I downloaded the latest versions of DivX and Quicktime so I could watch my videos.

However when I tried to play the sample Quicktime 7 movie the quicktime player showed just white, and then if i pressed play it would play for 2 seconds then use 100% CPU power and I'd have to kill the process in the Ctrl+Alt+Delete thing.

The same goes for .avi, .mpeg and any other video files, except that for Media Player before I installed DivX, was able to play the audio of an .avi file. I can also see a preview screenshot of the video file inside a folder (the little thumbnail view option on folders)


This hasn't ever happened to me before and I've done 6 or 7 reformats in the past just to clean everything up and start again and they always worked fine. Since this is the only PC I have for work (I'm a freelance animator) it's a rather urgent request for help.

Since it seems to be application non-specific I'm guessing it's a hardware or windows problem (but everything worked before i reformatted).


System:
AMD Athlon 3100+
1024MB RAM
ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe Motherboard
Nvidia Geforce 6600 GT 128MB
2 NTFS formatted Hard drives (1 partitioned)

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by kleinbaas

Dani AI

Generated

Short summary and extra context: as discovered, the failure to install motherboard/chipset drivers after a reinstall can produce exactly the symptoms described here — players show a blank/white screen, CPU spikes during playback, and thumbnails still appear. 's codec/player checks were a sensible early step, and 's reminder that missing codecs sometimes cause playback failure is also valid; however, the solution in this thread points to a driver-level (platform) problem rather than a missing codec alone.

Why this happens: without proper chipset/motherboard drivers Windows often falls back to generic device drivers and disables hardware acceleration, video overlay and proper bus/DMA operation. Media players then fall back to software rendering or run into device conflicts, which causes high CPU use, hangs or very short playback. Audio and thumbnail generation may still work because those use different subsystems.

Practical troubleshooting checklist (concise, ordered):

  • Check Device Manager for unknown devices or yellow icons and install the matching drivers from the motherboard vendor’s support page for the exact board model (chipset first, then onboard audio, LAN, SATA/IDE, etc.).
  • After chipset drivers, reinstall the graphics driver (clean uninstall → fresh install) so GPU acceleration and AGP/PCI settings are enabled.
  • Run DirectX Diagnostic (dxdiag) to confirm DirectDraw/Direct3D and hardware acceleration status; toggle the hardware acceleration slider in Display Properties if needed.
  • Test with a player that bundles codecs (to rule out system codec problems) and, if necessary, disable video overlay/hardware-accelerated output in the player to compare software vs hardware decoding.
  • Avoid indiscriminate codec packs as first choice; prefer targeted codecs or a well-maintained player with built-in decoders. BIOS or chipset driver updates can help but proceed cautiously (backup and follow vendor instructions).

A quick checklist like this fills the gap between the codec-focused suggestions from / and the final fix reported by , and helps future readers narrow whether the problem is a codec/player issue or a platform/driver issue.

Member Avatar for Sisyfos

well it is probably so that u are missing a couple of codecs that is needed to play your movies.
The easiest way (i find) to find which codecs u are missing is to download a small program called Avicodec and install it.
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/AVIcodec.htm

Now if you right click on your mediafiles u get the option to run avicodec and get detailed information about the file and the way u can see which codec is needed to run your file. Now the hard part might begin and that is to find the codec u need and install it. All i can say here is google is your friend.

Member Avatar for robinhood_01

I installed the program you suggested but when it tried to get the info for the fill it did what the players did and ran very slowly.

I installed G-Spot instead to see what codecs I needed and it said that I had all the codecs I needed to play the videos, which are just straight divx encoded. I also tried Xvid as well but that didn't work either.

I also tried installing a codec pack after my first reformat (did 2 in one day) and that didn't do anything.

This is purely a video problem, everything else works.
But I think the above explanation rules out codec trouble.

Member Avatar for Sisyfos

Well if g-spot says have all the codecs u need then it is probably so....because it does exactly what AviCodec does :D It does however sound strange that avicodec just runs for a bit and then stops and does not give u any information at all.

I have to ask a few obvious questions....
1. have u tried re-instaling quicktime?
2. .... .. . tried un-instaling quicktime and just run media-player and vice versa.

After reading your post a bit more carefully i find that the most probable cause of your problem is some sort of conflict between the two players since u can see the thumbnails in your folders because then it is not a codec problem.
So un-install all players and codecs and try to download just one and go from there....that would be my approach.

Member Avatar for robinhood_01

Sisyfos, thankyou for your suggestions, but I now consider myself a complete nOOb.

I discovered the problem occured because I didn't install the drivers for my motherboard (I thought I wouldn't need to because I didn't need the onboard sound). Oh well, it's a learning experience, I'd be much happier if i didn't have to use machines because they really highlight my ignorance.

So, I'm sorry I lead you on a rather pointless journey, at least I won't be doing that again.

Member Avatar for Sisyfos

:)
well i am glad it worked out for u.
And there u go that is why all user manuals always start with "check that the powercord is correctly plugged in"

Member Avatar for kleinbaas

You may need a new codec (new codecs come out all the time, if you have a video that needs a new codec you don’t have, the video wont play). OR you may need a specialized video player (you may not have the player needed to play that type of file). For a huge set of codec’s, hard to find media players, video editors, video and audio tools etc go to or .
Good Luck.

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