xp keeps flashing blue screen then re-starting

[Dan]

My P3 system was working perfectly well until recently when I
attempted to play a movie file with winamp (froze for 5 sec, flashed
blue screen for a split-second - just long enough to see the usual
blue screen text then restarted). It has kept up with that game
whenever I try to play a movie file on winamp or windows media player.
Now the problem has worsened: whatever the PC is doing, even if
totally idle, after something like 3 minutes, it flashes blue and
proceeds to restart The system dialog announces that the system has
recovered from a serious error- send/don't send. The box is not on the
net, so no point sending error report. However, through a link on
these dialogs, I was able to locate the memory dump file (*.dmp)
along with an .xml file in temp folder.
I cannot decipher the dump information or whatever is on the xml file,
but if they would be of use to someone who could help me solve this
problem without having to re-install xp, I've uploaded them here...
danielmakundi.com/dumps/Mini092108-07.dmp
and
danielmakundi.com/dumps/sysdata.xml
I'd appreciate your help.

 

[Dan]

Instead of booting windows, power up and enter the bios
hardware/health page and watch the voltage and temperature
reports. See if it locks up or otherwise fails just sitting
at that bios page.

When the system restarts, does it always do so successfully,
then booting all the way to windows or does it have to be
turned off for a period before it will work properly again
for a few mintues? A lockup so soon seems likely to be
overheating, check fans and dust buildup, although if it
were overheating that much, it would tend to prevent
successful booting to windows after the reset. Disable
Windows' restart on system error setting (Control Panel,
System, Advanced, Startup & Recovery) and write down the
bluescreen stop code. Note whether that code remains the
same or changes.

Examine the system for signs of capacitor failure and if you
have a spare PSU, try it. Run memtest86+ for a few hours (if
it can without crashing or errors), trying to isolate
whether the system itself (hardware) is instable or it's
only the windows installation that needs redone or repaired.

Since posting the first msg, i have made a key finding: freezing then
re-booting is not entirely random. It is when I try to run windows
media player or just select a wmv file. Otherwise the system works
fine. I do have a number of Flash Video (FLV) files, therse play quite
ok on Flash Video Player. MP3 also play fine on Winamp.

I'm fairly convinced that the hardware is fine, I blow PSU and insides
of my machine every now and then.

I do suspect Windows Media Player had wanted to snatch back default-
player status of video files that had been taken over by Winamp and
ended up corrupting some of driver files. I threfore wanted to
uninstall windows media player, only to discover that it is impossible
to do so on XP (at least that is how it looked to me).

Hope this sheds some light to my problem. Oh, and one more thing, can
one uninstall windows media player? I guess that's the root of my
problems.

 

[Pen]

Since posting the first msg, i have made a key finding: freezing then
re-booting is not entirely random. It is when I try to run windows
media player or just select a wmv file. Otherwise the system works
fine. I do have a number of Flash Video (FLV) files, therse play quite
ok on Flash Video Player. MP3 also play fine on Winamp.

I'm fairly convinced that the hardware is fine, I blow PSU and insides
of my machine every now and then.

I do suspect Windows Media Player had wanted to snatch back default-
player status of video files that had been taken over by Winamp and
ended up corrupting some of driver files. I threfore wanted to
uninstall windows media player, only to discover that it is impossible
to do so on XP (at least that is how it looked to me).

Hope this sheds some light to my problem. Oh, and one more thing, can
one uninstall windows media player? I guess that's the root of my
problems.

Yes, if add/remove won't do it, then use the remove windows components.

 

[Dan]

Yes, if add/remove won't do it, then use the remove windows components.

That's where I started. Remove windows component only removes media
player from start menu.