Does Windows Media Center XP make your computer more prone to crashing?

penguinsfan · Feb 14, 2006

A friend of mine needs to buy a new computer. I tried to sell him on the value of Windows Media Center XP, as I like to record my TV shows on it, but he had someone tell him that all the bells and whistles that come with Media Center make it more likely to crash. Any truth to that? The couple of friends and myself that have used Media Center have had no problems, though we've used it for nothing more than recording TV.

Mike012 · Feb 14, 2006

lol why dont u go to some one who works with computers like compusa or w.e or search on google

TimBo755 · Feb 14, 2006

Mike012 said:
lol why dont u go to some one who works with computers like compusa or w.e or search on google

TimBo755 · Feb 14, 2006

Mike012 said:
lol why dont u go to some one who works with computers like compusa or w.e or search on google

compusa, bestbuy, circuitcity would probably be the last places I would turn for advice about computers..truth is some people on here like myself have experience with computers.

i've personally never used media center but I found a little interesting review..

hxxp://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2240

"Another interesting phenomenon we noticed was that the slower the system got, the more prone it was to crashes. The larger the processing and disk queues got, the more our custom built Socket-939 testbed with aggressive memory timings started to crash. The majority of the crashes were hard locks and they didn't happen at all with the faster CPU configurations, but they definitely happened once we dropped below 1.6GHz."

Basically saying that if you have anything less than a 1.6Ghz CPU than you're gonna be blue screening quite often.

Mike012 · Feb 14, 2006

als i know is spend about 1000 on a comp n u wont get that prob lol

penguinsfan · Feb 15, 2006

Mike012 said:
lol why dont u go to some one who works with computers like compusa or w.e or search on google

I just wanted simple opinions from consumer users and you never know what you get from the store personnel. If I were spending much time on other forums of any kind, I would have posted the question there too.

penguinsfan · Feb 15, 2006

TimBo755 said:
compusa, bestbuy, circuitcity would probably be the last places I would turn for advice about computers..truth is some people on here like myself have experience with computers.

i've personally never used media center but I found a little interesting review..

hxxp://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2240

"Another interesting phenomenon we noticed was that the slower the system got, the more prone it was to crashes. The larger the processing and disk queues got, the more our custom built Socket-939 testbed with aggressive memory timings started to crash. The majority of the crashes were hard locks and they didn't happen at all with the faster CPU configurations, but they definitely happened once we dropped below 1.6GHz."

Basically saying that if you have anything less than a 1.6Ghz CPU than you're gonna be blue screening quite often.

Tim, is it possible one of the reasons me and my friends have never had bad experiences is we almost always erase what we record immediately after watching it and always make sure we have substantial space on our harddrives? I'm relatively computer stupid and don't know how much any of that has to do with anything.

Also, for what it's worth, I've never experience a computer crash. The worst thing that has ever happened to me is freezing up. Shit, I'd probably panick and wouldn't know what to do if my computer crashed. ?

TimBo755 · Feb 15, 2006

Erasing everything after you record it shouldn't matter unless you were going to let it get out of hand and do it until you ran out of space. (somewhat hard to do)

I'd go ahead and tell him to get it based on personal experiences and it looks to me like you and a few of your other friends have it. That alone would be enough to recommend it if you have had mostly good experiences with it, just make sure that he gets a computer sufficient enough to run it; <or=1.6GHz and at least 512mb ram.. Hard drive space shouldn't matter much.

What I meant by crashing is that windows has this universal error for all microsoft products called a blue screen of death (BSOD) and it crashes your computer meaning you have to restart or cold boot your machine. (turn it off and on manually) It's nothing to really panic about unless it happens frequently.

Mike012 · Feb 15, 2006

yeah true true i guess ur right... well i have a windows xp home addition and i dont have any trouble of crashing but then again i always clean it out about every month or so... mby twice a month and just dont go into any �� sites and ull b good ha.

I have a cd called system restore so if any thing bad happend that cd will just restore my comp back to normal but that has nuthin to do with this just telln ya.

penguinsfan · Feb 15, 2006

TimBo755 said:
What I meant by crashing is that windows has this universal error for all microsoft products called a blue screen of death (BSOD) and it crashes your computer meaning you have to restart or cold boot your machine. (turn it off and on manually) It's nothing to really panic about unless it happens frequently.

Sounds kinda like freezing up, only a little different. Same end result. I always thought a crash basically erased everything off your harddrive.

TimBo755 · Feb 15, 2006

I'd take a lot to do that, unless you somehow got a nasty virus.

Does Windows Media Center XP make your computer more prone to crashing?

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