Videos freezing upon playing

[baybeh]

Hello,

I've seen this problem being cited here but haven't found a solution, so posting this. Would be grateful if someone could help.

My computer config:
- Core 2 Duo processor
- Windows XP
- Graphics card - NVIDIA Geforce 210 (ASUS EN210 Silent 512M DDR2)
- RAM actually installed 4 GB, but shows as 2.75GB
Here's the explanation : A year ago my computer started having major problems. I took it for repair and I was told that both my RAM and previous graphics card had gone bad and I should upgrade. I switched from 2GB RAM to 4, but it didn't show as 4GB in the system, and later I was told that 4 GB RAM won't function on Windows XP. So it's 4GB installed but shows 2.75. Secondly after having RAM and graphics card upgraded, videos stopped playing properly. Youtube videos played, but the lower part of the video would become blurred. I've been living with this for a year and no one has been able to diagnose. Got habituated to seeing blurry youtube vids. Vimeo videos have been playing fine. But all other type of video players, including the ones that played perfectly well earlier (for instance, on the TED website) stopped playing. My comp would freeze on playing full screen after a few seconds or minutes. The audio would continue but nothing would move and I would have to reboot. (No pink colors, like some folks have been experiencing). At times the comp would freeze without full screening as well. However, since the past few weeks I began noticing that most videos did begin to play ok. I didn't check with every player, afraid that it might lead to the freezing, but quite a few of them played ok. However since the past 3-4 days, the same freezing has started happening with youtube videos. It doesn't have to be 720p or 1080 p; some random youtube videos play ok, while most don't, and they crash at practically the same point while playing again. This is happening in both google chrome and firefox. I've checked for viruses also and there are none.
Right now I'm too scared to check out videos on Vimeo or any other site where the videos would formerly freeze, because if light weight videos on youtube won't play, then which ones will? Certainly not Vimeo's HD vids.
I don't play video games.

I have checked with flash player - Chrome has an inbuilt one that updates itself.

But yes, there is one change that I made. My C: drive had been filling up abnormally fast so I deleted a number of files and programs, including Adobe Premiere and Photoshop and several other files which were cluttering my comp. Perhaps something that was crucial to playing videos got deleted. But I can't figure out what.

Please help! I'm a short filmmaker and am nothing if I don't watch videos online!


And if it's a problem with Nvidia then it's mighty shitty of them for not having fixed this problem for so long and letting customers suffer.

 

[hang-the-9]

Install the older nVidia drivers, the new ones have issues with web video.

When you say you "Deleted" the files and programs, did you uninstall them or simply deleted them?

The issue with the RAM not seeing the full 4 gig is not XP but 32 bit XP, it won't see anything over 3.2 gig of RAM or so. If they said the RAM is bad, hope you did not just install 2 more gig but replaced the bad one.

 

[baybeh]

Thanks for the reply!

I'm a complete noob, so could you guide me as to which drivers I should install, and from where can I download them?

About the programs, yes, I mean I uninstalled them. (Sorry about my noob terminology!)

Yes, you're right, it's a 32 bit XP version. And no, the defective RAM was replaced by new ones.

 

[smorizio]

what i would do is first run cpu-z and toss up your spec here.power supply and system. on older system you have to make sure the power supply going to be able to run a new video card if it an dell or pre made pc they use under size power supplys. also with newer cards you have to be care full of the mb chipsets. not all older chipset like all video video cards.when you install a new video card you need to run a drive sweeper to remove the old drivers. i also recommended that people run ccleaner and malware bytes and a good anti virus sweep. on older pc most people anti virus expired or the engine so old that virus hackers know how to get around it. that why you see nortons and mcafee come out with new products every year,. they have to rewrite the engin code that hackers have broken. with older pc you have to check for new chipset drivers for the mb/sound/network card. sometime windows will not install the newest drivers. same goes for flash/java and the browsers. also with most web video most of them are using dvix or other plug ins to make them smaller. right now flash and mosilla type browser dont like to play nice people with the older nvidia cards and the 29x drivers some have to turn off hardware acceleration in flash to stop the player from locking up. right click on a flash window and it a box you uncheck. with the ram that was replaced...the mb may not have read the speed or voltage right. cpu-z will read the mb info and ram speed. the spd tab will give you the make and the speed the ram can run at. memtest will tell you if you have a bad dimm or something causing an issue. the last thing with old pc is that the dust is cleaned out and the fans are working.(heat can cause lock up.)

 

[hang-the-9]

Try these http://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/43994

I am pretty sure it's the driver I went to when Flash video started to lock up my PC.

 

[baybeh]

Try these http://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/43994

I am pretty sure it's the driver I went to when Flash video started to lock up my PC.

Thank you everyone, for replying.

@hang-the-9 : I looked at the driver you suggested but the page makes no mention of my graphics card (GeForce 210) so I did a search here instead http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us
The manual search yielded this GeForce R300 Driver Version: 301.42 WHQL which I downloaded. ( http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp-301.42-whql-driver.html )
However, there was a problem while installing. (Unable to copy-paste screenshot here for some reason). This is what it said :

Nvidia update 1.8.15 Not installed
PhysX System software 9.12.0213 Installed
HD Audio Driver 1.3.16.0 Not installed
Nvidia update components 1.8.15 Failed
nView 136.27 Installed
Graphics Driver 301.42 Installed

After restarting the comp, the youtube videos are now playing, but the blurred bar at the lower end of the video remains. In addition, the entire color palette seems to have become dark, as well as colors have become a bit desaturated. It's as if everything on the screen is being seen through a dark filter. I tried adjusting the brightness/contrast setting on the Nvidia control panel but it's not helping much.

In addition, videos on other players are still not playing. I tried watching a TED video full screen and after playing for a few seconds the video screen kept going all black, sometimes the video would play only on half the screen, and other times the video would play on 3/4 of the screen.

Sp, part of the problem has resolved, and part has not. What do I do next?

Thanks in advance.

 

[baybeh]

Also, while the driver was downloading, I was also getting Windows updates and the window for restarting the comp kept popping up. I didn't restart till the driver too was downloaded. Could there be any connection with parts of the driver not being downloaded properly? Also my internet connection wasn't working very well at that time, and could this have a bearing as well?

 

[hang-the-9]

Try another browser, sounds like you are using Chrome from your post. Firefox is good, it tends to play online videos with less crashing than I.E. at least.

I don't like Chrome at all, aside from the fact that it's a pain in corporate systems because of how it's installer and uninstaller works (after you install it, at least earlier versions, you could not get I.E. to work properly) and it renders pages worse than I.E. or Firefox.

 

[baybeh]

I've tried Firefox already. The same problem exists in it as well.

What should I do about the new drivers? Should I uninstall the one I downloaded today and reinstall the same again? Or try another? The one I tried is the one recommended by the GeForce site itself. Although it seems there are more here http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?id=10

 

[baybeh]

Or should I try installing the Nvidia update 1.8.15 and HD Audio Driver 1.3.16.0 (which did not install with the driver) separately?

 

[hang-the-9]

You can try to fully uninstall the card and drivers and re-install using the older ones. This really sounds like he same issue I have seen on here and in my own PC due to the new nVidia drivers not working right with Flash.

 

[baybeh]

The trouble is, my previous graphics card went kaput and had to be replaced. I don't have it anymore and neither do I know what drivers it ran on. Unfortunate.

 

[smorizio]

you get that failure with nvidia if the same or newer software is already on the system. nvidia has a auto detect drivers on there web page. if you updated your flash player then update or download dvix plug ins. most INTERNET video now in encoded and if you dont have the right plug ins some web based movies might not play right.

 

[baybeh]

Best answer selected by baybeh.

 

[eross1]

I have recently started having the same issue with streaming videos. After trying everything suggested here and on other sites to no avail, I found out the problem was the wireless pci card driver. I had originally used the generic Atheros driver that windows installed. I now use the latest driver from the manufacturer site (tp-link in my case), and the problem is gone. It also makes sense, since I did not have other video issues with the computer.