Windows hangs randomly when playing in winamp

[Azjo]

I think it may be a hardware issue but happens mostly with winamp so maybe someone in here can help.

When i play music with winamp, suddenly (it can be within 5-10 mins or several hours) my whole system hangs.
I can see in processes that System begins to use 100% cpu before everything simply freezes and after 10-15 seconds it unfreezes and everythings fine.

i tried putting buffering (directsound output) down to 200 and now the freezing is less than a 1/2 second.
When i played music with foobar2k at 1000 buffering i didnt have issues but with winamp at 1000 i still had them.

An issue i can think of, i got my new system and i simply put my entire old winamp in to use the same settings as always. That was never a problem with new install to same pc though.

When that is said, i have tried this freezing twice when NOT playing winamp, once when i was playing ut2004 and and another where i was doing a counterstrike source test (no sound) but over 2 weeks that has only happened twice without winamp running so it is extremely rare that happens.

maybe a hardware compability issue?
My old system was basically socket A barton 3200+ etc and same soundcard as now.

My new system:
Athlon 4200+ X2 <-- a dualcore issue maybe?
Asus A8N SLI/SE
Leadtek 7800GT
Thermaltake 680w
and i reused my soundcard which is a Soundblaster Live 5.1! from 2000. <-- this may be the issue?

anyone has an idea what may be my problem?
I am currently testing with a completely new install of winamp, but i cant wait any longer so i decided to ask.

[Azjo]

I have now tested further and what i can say is that it happens extremely rarely when winamp is not opened.
I installed onboard sound and the same thing happens, it may freeze for a bit longer with onboard i think.

I tried installing just a few sound codecs to a default winamp and it instantly began doing the random freezes.

What on earth can cause this? I had these codecs for years and never had a problem with them.
There has to be some link with winamp but what?

[Azjo]

I tried doing cpu benchmarks with sisoft sandra and lavasys everest while running winamp and when i do these it freezes as i explained.

neither foobar2k or even wmp9 has any problems with the cpu benchmarks so it HAS to be something winamp is doing.
But what?

Its like winamp goes insane just cos it doesnt have first priority anymore.

[JonnyMac]

Well, if it also happens when Winamp running that would suggest it is a system problem and not a problem specific to Winamp. In which case, we can't give you much help. If the freeze happens more often with Winamp, that just may be "it comes to the surface" more often when Winamp is running.

As far as Winamp is concerned....

Try the following DirectSound config tweaks

http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?postid=1212926#post1212926

Close & restart Winamp after making the DS tweaks. Although not necessary, you may want to close Winamp, close down Windows and restart. Some users have found, changes don't fully take effect until a reboot.

No luck? Have you tried a full uninstall > reinstall (AKA clean install) of Winamp?

Still no luck? Please provide a HijackThis log. Download links and instructions for posting a HjT log can be found here.

[Azjo]

I did try a default winamp and it happened much less but still a few times a day.
Then i installed msn song plugin and no change.
Then i installed snesamp and he207 (for psx music) and nezp0945 (nes and gameboy) and it instantly started hanging like "normal".
I remember uninstalling lame mp3 writer output when it was at the worst, and it instantly worked alot better.
Problem is, these worked 100% fine on my other system.

And yes, i know it has to be my system.. but it would help alot if i knew what in winamp provoked the system to freeze.
Seems to happen when both cpus uses alot of cpu so im thinking it may be dualcore, any chance i can get my system tested at some other X2 user?

[CraigF]

I get no hanging on my dualcode X2