# No video files will play on ANY player on my Windows 7 computer
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-video-files-will-play-on-any-player-on-my-windows-7-computer/995458
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [January 1, 2024, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-video-files-will-play-on-any-player-on-my-windows-7-computer/995458 "2024-01-01T19:32:25Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@pjd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pjd)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2024, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-video-files-will-play-on-any-player-on-my-windows-7-computer/995458/21 "2024-01-02T14:39:37Z")
Have you tried an older version of a media player (you can get old
versions of VLC from their download page).
Lots of programs update themselves along with the latest versions
of windows, and windows 7 is no longer supported.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2024, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-video-files-will-play-on-any-player-on-my-windows-7-computer/995458/22 "2024-01-02T15:02:27Z")
> [@ranwill](#):
>
> No everything has remained the same over the past few years. The issue started with the video players crashing about 50% of the time and it has now escalated to 100%.
If it started out as intermittent and is now constant, that sounds to me like an overheating issue. You might try opening up your computer case and blasting everything with “compressed air” (it’s not actually air, but that’s what everyone calls it). Be warned that this is likely to create a huge cloud of dust.
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### Author:  [@ranwill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ranwill)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2024, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-video-files-will-play-on-any-player-on-my-windows-7-computer/995458/23 "2024-01-02T21:41:20Z")
Took it outside and blew it out. There was a lot of dust on the fins under the fan so I really hoped this would solve my problem but it did not. At least it is cleaner in there.
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### Author:  [@ranwill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ranwill)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2024, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-video-files-will-play-on-any-player-on-my-windows-7-computer/995458/24 "2024-01-02T21:43:29Z")
I ran AVG Antivirus and Malwarebytes. Both found minor things and eliminated them but this did not solve my player crash problem.
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### Author:  [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2024, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-video-files-will-play-on-any-player-on-my-windows-7-computer/995458/25 "2024-01-02T22:41:57Z")
Exactly what computer do you have? My guess is that since you are running Windows 7 on it that it is a fairly old computer and it is probably worth $50 or so if it were working correctly and what I would do after spending all this effort with no success is simply buy another refurbished/used computer on eBay.
@Chronos mentioned overheating; anyone think this could be a fan problem?
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### Author:  [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2024, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-video-files-will-play-on-any-player-on-my-windows-7-computer/995458/26 "2024-01-02T23:11:34Z")
One thing you might do is take a portable USB drive and boot Linux or some portable version of Windows 10 or 11 from it, and see if everything suddenly works or not.
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### Author:  [@ranwill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ranwill)
#### Post date: [January 2, 2024, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-video-files-will-play-on-any-player-on-my-windows-7-computer/995458/27 "2024-01-02T23:32:14Z")
It is an HP Pavilion Slimline s5-1160 from around 2011. I can see that the fan is spinning, but, of course, I don’t know if it is at the full correct speed.
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### Author:  [@wjChia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wjChia)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2024, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-video-files-will-play-on-any-player-on-my-windows-7-computer/995458/28 "2024-01-03T10:02:21Z")
install HWMonitor and check the temperature of your pc components
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### Author:  [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2024, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-video-files-will-play-on-any-player-on-my-windows-7-computer/995458/29 "2024-01-03T18:37:39Z")
If you can figure out which is the video chip, check that the heat sink is tight on it. I helped with a computer once that died about 30 seconds after it finished booting. One anchor of the heat sink had come loose, it was hanging off the chip, so within a minute or two the CPU overheated.
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