Windows 7: Crashes when playing YouTube videos

So yeah, I have this problem where every time I start to play a YouTube video, my screen will flicker a little then go black, permanently. I then have to force a power off to get Windows working again.

I can't figure out if it is Windows, FireFox, the Nvidia driver or the Flash plugin that's causing the problem.

A few times when the screen flickers it does come back on, with a balloon message saying the Nvidia driver has crashed and restarted, which would obviously point to the drivers. But only today I updated to the newest version (266.58) but still the problem occurs.

I removed the video driver, FireFox and Flash. Reinstalled all drivers cleanly, but I'm still having all the same problems. I can't for the life of me work it out.

And this only happens on YouTube. Any other video streaming sites play absolutely fine, but YouTube? Nope.

Can anyone out there give a little help to this problem?

Oh, it's Windows 7 64-bit, on a Dell XPS M1730 with Nvidia GeForce 8700m GT



Thank you in advance!

Scan for maleware as a start

OK, well, instead of scanning for malware, I formatted my laptop, which I've been meaining to do any way.

So with only the chipset, audio and video drivers installed, I installed Flash and tried YouTube on Internet Explorer instead of FireFox. Completely clean install, different browser... the bloody thing still crashes. Black screen, no activity, completely dead, have to force a shut down. What the hell?

At the moment, I removed the new Nvidia drivers (266.58) and installed the older 258.96 to see what happens. I'll report back once I have some results.

EDIT: Well, running the older 258.96 driver and YouTube plays video everytime without a problem. So, possible bug in the new driver? I shall have to stick to the older drive for now, unfortunately. Not ideal, but seem I have no choice.

Driver versions are really never ideal .. the best one is the one that plays happy with your system ..

I have THE EXACT SAME PROBLEM!! and I too have a dell XPS m1730 with an Nvidia 8700 gt graphics card. My first reaction was to download the latest drivers, but apparently that doesn't fix the problem. I also thought it might be a flash player issue, but if the problem goes away with old video card drivers then I guess I will try downgrading too.

Yep me too exact same system, just upgraded to Windows 7 64bit. Dell isn't supporting Windows 7 for this system so obviously they know something we don't and are resolutely unwilling to inform us.
DvDs are doing the same thing or simply not playing correctly!
Keep me posted if you find a resolution, I'll do the same for you.
ty in adv

I have an xps m1730 with gforce 8700m GT graphics card and recently upgraded to Windows 7 64bit had some driver problems because dell is not supporting Windows 7 64 bit upgrades on this system... they obviously know of some issues and are not informing thier customers. Same deal video crashing in you tube in browser and dvd.. not always but very often and when the dvd doesnt crash the video card it simply doest play properly!
Please post here if you find a resolution as will ty all!

Also I would like to add that I found if I use the 32 bit version of Iexplorer, I dont crash on you tube or other in browser video plug ins like Divx!

It all started with wanting to upgrade my xps m1730 to win 7 64 bit from win vista 32 bit. It was trickey at first having to use the option of preloading the dell chipset controller drivers from the install options on the Windows 7 upgrade disk. After that I needed use Win vista 64bit drivers from Dell's website! Ok that all worked fine but I had an "unknown pci device" in the device manager and my video kept crashing to black screen. Found out I needed the old Ageia physx drivers (R161803) from dell. Also, reverted to (258.96_notebook_winvista_win7_64bit_international_whql) drivers for my graphics card to stop the video from crashing which I obtained from Nvidias archived drivers.
I uninstalled the video drivers and used "Driver Sweeper" (freeware btw) then rebooted and installed the 258.96 version of nvidia drivers. Presto no more video crashing and Ageia drivers solved the unknown device issue...
Using the machine for several days steady now.. you tube, dvd, installing games running high end games like WoW and Sim3 and this system is very stable no crashes at all. Idk why Dell doesn't help with a little support for these machines! But I hope this helps anyone else with the same issues.

Oskarre, you are the bomb!!! I did the exact same thing with my XPS M1370 and worked hours and hours trying to solve the problem after I upgraded to Win 7 64 Bit. Your solution worked perfectly in ten minutes and now no more black screen of death. PhysX card shows up, SLI 8700M works well, better benchmarks and I am in business. Woot!
Thanks for taking the time to post. I just wished I could have saved hours of frustration and found your post first. Thanks again, Greg!