Windows Media Player 11/Media Center Player plays too fast

This is XP Media Center PC with both WMP 11 and Media Center. Everything was working fine until last week. Now whenever i play any video in any of these players, the video plays 2 to 3 times faster than its actual speed and audio to gets disappeared. This is happening in both Windows Media Player as well as Media Center.

I tried adjusting Hardware Acceleration but that dint worked. The only way to make the video normal is to restart the computer 2 to 3 times. Still the video plays fine for only about 10 minutes and again the same thing happens.

I’m now out of ideas. Can anyone help please?

Hello Stern, did you found any fix for the same? Even I’m facing exactly the same error message but in my case no matter how many times I restart the computer, video remains playing faster 2x or 3x. So far I have spent more than 5 days searching web for solution but nothing helped. Somebody please help.

After uninstalling several programs I thought were not needed WMP would only play fast and without sound. I tried installing codecs and severl other ideas I googled but, this is what worked for me.
http://www.eusing.com/free_registry_...ry_cleaner.htm