Crashes when playing YouTube videos

[BlueStreak]

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!

 

[diehrd]

Scan for maleware as a start

 

[BlueStreak]

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.

 

[diehrd]

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

 

[davrob01]

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.

 

[Oskarre]

Video Crashing

Yep me too exact same system, just upgraded to win7 64bit. Dell isn't supporting Win7 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

 

[Oskarre]

I have an xps m1730 with gforce 8700m GT graphics card and recently upgraded to win7 64bit had some driver problems because dell is not supporting win7 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!

 

[Oskarre]

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!

 

[Oskarre]

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 win7 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.

 

[GregMD]

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!

 

[BlueStreak]

AAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!! Great... OK, as it turns out, keeping the older drivers (258.96) WASN'T the cure, as it has now done it a few times. Although, this time it didn't crash, the video driver just stopped responding and was restarted. So, older drivers...? NOT the answer.

OK, so I upgraded to the NEWEST of drivers (270.61) thinking this MAY very well sort out the problems with Flash Videos, as well being able to keep my drivers upto date. but... nope. After a few YouTube videos, THIS driver also crashed and had to be restarted. What the Hell? THREE drivers in a ROW with Flash based video problems?? Hmm...

Anyway, so the old drivers (258.96) were no good in the end, the newer drivers at the time (260.99) were no good and the newest drivers (270.61) are also no good. All 3 have the exact same issues...???

So yeah, I just thought I'd get that out there. There may be users that haven't had this problem at all, but it seems to be an issue with the M1730s cards more than anything.

EDIT: As of today (03/05) the graphics problem has now extended to Windows Media Player as well, with random videos causing a black screen of death and forcing me to restart. In all seriousness here... just what the Hell is wrong with the recent nVidia drivers? How can 3 drivers in a row all have the same problem?

 

[BlueStreak]

This is just a thought here, and may be TOTALLY pointless, but... one other thing I did, besides removing and reinstalling Flash, FireFox and the nVidia drivers about a gazillion times, was the I updated my DirectX (there was a 10Mb update).

Now, before this, when the 258.96 drivers started to misbehave again, Windows Media Player ALSO started to give me the Black Screen of Death. This meant the problem amy not be Flash related afterall. So, I just thought of other video related software, and I thought of DirectX.

At the moment, I am still on 258.96 (I daren't upgrade, just in case) with no black screens on YouTube or WMP AND I have Hardware Acceleration enabled. Plus, since updating DirectX, YouTube videos SEEM to load faster as well. But this could just be me.

Anyway, this is just an idea I tried. But I still have NO idea if it helped in any way. Until I upgrade to 270.61 again, I won't know for sure... but I'm too afraid to, hahaha.

So, if anyone does try this, please let us know what happens.

 

[niterider666]

NVIDIA drivers

Hey guys,

I've had this issue from the moment I bought the machine, I'm running Win 7 64bit and the latest stable driver from Nvidia I can use is 197.16, anything above that crashes any video content on web pages and anything on the hard drive using WMP.

I'm running DirectX 11, Adobe Flash 10.3 and Chrome 11 (with hardware acceleration enabled)

Scouring the internet, I see that the latest driver that works for most people is 258.96 which I might try if I'm feeling brave. Just fed up with it crashing!

 

[Evo120]

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 win7 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.

I am glad to hear that I am not the only person to have come across this issue, its ridiculous how much time I have wasted in attempt to fix this issue but have still had no luck.

I was hoping that this solution you have posted would do the trick but I am having issues following through with this..

1. I cannot install the older Ageia physx driver because I have no way of removing the old one. I cannot find a single working download of "Driver Sweeper"
2. I have tried to download the 258.96 version of the driver for Windows 7 through Nvidia but when I went to install it is told me there are no supported drivers for my hardware

I have called Dell and wasted hours on the phone only for them to tell me it was a software issue and that they wanted me to pay for a warranty for any help which I doubt they could do much anyway..

I am not trying to pay them for something that they shouldn't get paid for and I don't feel like wasting anymore of my time. If anyone could possibly help me with this issue I would appreciate it more than you know. Thanks in advance for any responses or help, as I said I greatly appreciate it. :shock:

 

[niterider666]

Hi EVO120,

Here is where I got my version of DriverSweeper that works:

Phyxion.net - Driver Sweeper

If you want to roll back both the Phyx driver and the Nvidia driver, always use the Nvidia uninstaller NOT the windows one, then run DriverSweeper, then proceed to install the new nvidia driver, checking the 'clean install' box in the custom installation menu.

I've taken a leap of faith and installed 258.96, no crashes with youtube or flash content but it does occasionally crash Windows Media Player, but does recover. I'm now thinking it's a conflict with the 64 bit Windows 7 as both Flash and Java are 32 bit applications...

Anyone tried the latest drivers from Nvidia that were released a few days ago? Version 275.33?

N666

> Dell XPS M1730 - NVidia Geforce 8700M GT SLI - Windows 7 64bit - Flash 10.3 - Chrome 11 - DirectX 11 - AVG 10 <
> New Graphics Card, 2 x new Hard drives, new keyboard & new motherboard, as of Jan 2011, thanks Dell! <

 

[Evo120]

Thank you very much everyone and Niterider666!

I feel one step closer to getting rid of this annoyance

I was able to complete most of this process, although it seemed like I had to do it a few times to actually do it successfully (had to turn off auto-driver updates). But I am still having an issue with my Ageia PhysX driver because DriverSweeper will not remove the newest version so I can install the one posted in this forum...
I'm not sure what to do because I can't figure out a way to do it but I'm still afraid to bring up youtube at this point.

Oh and btw I had the newest available driver and had the same issues happening, I would not suggest it.

 

[stonegolem]

I have DELL XPS 1730 with 8700M SLI setup and I had the exact same problem. My issue solved by these 2 steps:

1) Uninstalled nVidia drivers by using "DriverSweeper_2.1.0"
2) Installed "258.96_notebook_winvista_win7_64bit_international_whql"

I want to use newer drivers though

 

[niterider666]

Evo120,

If it's being that annoying then uninstall the Physx software from Control Panel and re-install the 258.96 driver which includes the latest Physx drivers with it. It's a problem which I had too when I first got the machine.

The way I got rid of it (which also might work for you) was to sequentially install the Physx drivers, starting with 8.09.04, then 9.09.0814, THEN install the Nvidia drivers in order from 195 -> 258. It's a long process but it solves the Physx driver issue.

Since then I found out that the Physx adaptor is pretty pointless unless you're a die-hard gamer, I've disabled it in Device Manager altogether now as it slows the system down and produces too much heat. I don't miss it.

Niterider666

 

[ElweSingollo]

Just wanted to say am now running latest drivers from Nvidia and was having these problems however I stumbled upon a post at reddit that suggested that what to do was when you have a video on screen pause it quickly at the start before you crash hopefully right click in go into the flash settings and then uncheck the "enable hardware acceleration" tick box and touch wood so far that seeems to have worked like a charm for me.

obviously only need to do that once then it should be set that way for all flash videos you play.

 

[stonegolem]

ElweSingollo ,
Unchecking the "enable hardware acceleration" tick box will reduce the percentage of the crashes but it will eventually happen again. I have done that method and it was good for 2 days. Later it started to happen again, it's just random