DVD playback lockups, lil help please :)

[Nuladen]

Hi all, first post here, found you after searching the net for some help on a problem I've having

I've just built a new pc for a friend, its not too bad but definetly on the budget side of things, specs are:

Sapphire ATI Radeon Xpress 200 Motherboard. (it was supposed to have integrade gfx in the shape of an ATI X300 but doesn't).
AMD64 SKT 939 3000.
512Mb DDR400.
Connect3d ATI Radeon X300SE 128Mb.
Gigabyte DVD-CDRW Combo drive.
XP Home.

Now the sytem is up and running, and everything seem fine, it even plays game far better than I expected it to considering the gfx card

But I get lockups when trying to play DVD's, I have tried various players including PowerDVD which was supplied with the DVD drive.

Now if I drop desktop resolution to 800 by 600 and 16 bit colour I can kinda get some playback, fullscreen I end up with about a frame a second maybe less maybe more. Windowed I just get a still image. Sound plays fine throughout. However sometimes if I grab the window (if it hasn't totally locked up) and drag it around the image appears to update at a far nicer rate and almost looks like normal playback except it being draged all over the screen by your truely

The drive appears to be working in UltraDMA mode2, I have tried switching playback to software to no effect. The drive definetly works, I plugged it into my pc and it played just fine with the DVD I am using to test with. I swapped my PSU into the new pc to check that too, no effect.

The system will quite happily play DivX stuff too, I grabbed the Batman Begins trailer from divx.com and using their player all was good.

Any ideas before I rip the rest of my hair out?

Thanks,

Nul.

[anonymez]

try downloading 'media player classic' from http://www.free-codecs.com , and try playing the dvd...

got the latest directx? latest graphics card drivers?

[tigerman8u]

you can also try vlc (videolan) uses it's own codecs but you should have no problem playing video with the pc specs. I would try as "anonymez" stated.

[Nuladen]

Ok, thanks for the input all

All drivers are up to date, including DX. Tried the two players suggested and both failed, Media Player Classic threw a list of errors at me and vlc locked up.

I got hold of a Geforce6600GT last night and tried with that, the system refused to boot wwhen drivers were installed for it. Tried a fresh install and it refused to install drivers for it even when pointed directly at them

I have requested an RMA for the board and gfx card now and will get an alternative

Now the only problem I have is that XP Home got activated on the current stuff and I'll probably have a fun time trying to explain it all to Microsoft and get it reaactivated

Thanks again

Nul.