Topic: HELP! playing music files = computer locking up

[keepongoin]

for the last couple of months, my computer completely locks up when i play .wav, .flac, .shn, or any other file in winamp, media player, etc.

it will play the file for a couple minutes and then it just loses functionality entirely.

what may be going on?  are their solutions for this?  it makes it a real pain in the ass to track out shows with my computer in its current state.

also, i should mention that i thought it was itunes causing this, as it works fine as a player... but this was actually happening before i installed itunes to manage my ipod/mp3s

[dnsacks]

could be a corrupt soundcard driver.  Might want to download the current driver for your soundcard, uninstall the soundcard from your device manager, reboot and install the new soundcard driver. 

[keepongoin]

thanks, going to give that a try. +T

[keepongoin]

did that - didn't work.

ran a memory test. 

one RAM chip went bad.  turns out that it was causing all sorts of other issues that affected me much less in my day-to-day operation.

looks like it is smooth sailing now (fingers crossed!)

[dnsacks]

great news, sorry to lead you down the wrong path.  What program did you use for your memory test?

[keepongoin]

memtest86... http://www.memtest.org/

free and easy... took overnight, but it was worth it.

oh, and no biggie with going down the wrong path... there were more and more lockups happening, and when it happened with the computer just idle, i figured it was either some spyware or a hardware issue.   

oh, and +T for replying... sometimes it just takes a suggestion to get me motivated to figuring out problems.