Windows 7 64 bit video freezing

Hi,
My computer sometimes freezes when I try to play a video. When it does this, it freezes all video streams. Anything I try to view online, or my personal videos on my hard drive. When I click on the video to play it, my curser spins like it is loading the video, but the video never loads.

When online using IE8 when I click on the screen again, it gets "white." It is transparent and I can see the screen through the white, but the screen is frozen. When viewing my personal videos, I don't get the transparent white screen, but just the spinning curser. In each case I am able to end the program when I do control-alt-delete (the task manager shows the program as not responding), and the problem corrects itself with a restart.

I am not very techy with the computer, but I can usually follow if you don't get too technical with me.

I am on a Dell XPS 16. Intel CORE i7, I updated from Vista to W7 about a year ago and this problem seemed to have started about 3 months ago.

Thanks,
Jane

Are you running 32-bit or 64-bit W7?

The transparent white often means the application is not responding but the system did realize you hit a key. If you hit Ctrl+Alt+Del you can choose Start Task Manager and then you can right-click and end the process that is hanging.

Your browser is probably using an add-in player to deliver the audio/video stream, Do you know if you have flash player or silverlight installed? Silverlight should get regular updates during Windows Update cycles because it is from Microsoft. Depending on the settings flash may try to update itself from the Adobe sites as well but you should verify your flash is up-to-date.

When you play your own videos is it with Windows Media Player, Windows Media Center, something else? Have these videos worked on your computer in the past?
If it never played then it could be that you don't have the codec needed to play this video.

Another possibility is your audio/video drivers need updated. Have you been to the Dell site to see if W7 driver updates are available?

This is a {EDIT:miserable} conflict somewhere deep in the system. And according to a lot of Googling a lot of people are suffering from it.
I did a lot of (time)testing. All hardware ok, updated all drivers to latest versions (DriverGeniusProfessionalEdition!) and tried some tricks i read about.
(Energy management on highest level) Nothing worked.

Finally i desperately tried this trick i've read about: i connected an additonal old keyboard to the PS/2 port of my mobo. Believe it or not, problem seems to be solved. I can open 5 YouTube streams simultaniously and start some other applications at the same time.

So i have 2 keyboards connected now (PS/2 and wireless) Stop doubting your MOBO, memorysticks, HD's, GPU's or even the drivers when there is no logical reason to doubt it. Don't know whats inflicting the failures but my guess is it has something to do with Windows 7 in combination with the Intel P38/48 chips on socket775 / DDR3 mobo's.
It seems that somewhere deep this combination evokes (random) conflicts.

I have 64 bit W7.

I can end the task by hitting Ctrl+Alt+Del, but once I've ended the program that isn't responding, I can't play any video's, my own or on the internet, until I do a restart.


I'm not sure how to tell about the flash player vs silverlight. When I go to my add/remove programs, it lists Adobe Flash Player 10 ActiveX and Adobe Flash Player 10 Plugin and Silverlight. They all show current dates in the "install date" column, so I assume that they are auto updating.

My own videos run with Windows Media Player. Yes, they have worked in the past, & work now, but when my computer goes into "freeze mode" I have to restart the darn thing to get videos to play.

There is a video driver update available. Maybe I should start there.

This appears to be random. I'd say 2 of every 10 times I start my computer I have this problem. I can always resolve with a restart. Very curious indeed.

Yes please try to update your drivers, especially video and audio.