Flash content causes computer freeze

[entanglebit]

I have an odd issue that I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere -- I'm hoping
someone can help. My computer periodically locks up completely (total freeze;
mouse and keyboard die -- hard reboot required), when I view Flash content.

It's not for every Flash file, but it's also not any one particular file or
website. Sometimes a Flash-based site (say, YouTube) will lock up the
computer, sometimes it won't. And, sometimes I can go for hours viewing Flash
content, other times it happens right away. But, inevitably, the computer WILL
lock up. This occurs in both Firefox (via Flash plug-in) and Internet Explorer
(via AX control). It also occurs using both Flash 9 and Flash 8 (I haven't
tried version 7 or earlier). Right now I've uninstalled the players entirely,
using the uninstaller. I've uninstalled the players and re-installed them in
the past, which did not fix the issue.

I use a Dell Dimension E510, Pentium D-based computer, with an ATI Radeon X600
graphics card. Windows XP Home Edition, SP2. Any ideas? This is driving me
nuts!

Thanks.

[normance]

I am seeing the same problem as you. From other websites seems it could have
been a video driver problem that ATI never got right yet. None of the solutions
seem to offer a pernament fix. That's the reason while I was looking here,
since it seems to be flash related in my opinion. I am glad to see you already
went the route I was about to so I won't need to try that. I have also
reinstalled SP2 but that did not make a difference. I am planning to go to a
different brand of video card in the future for the computers I build and stay
away from ATI or RADEON. I will also keep checking back on this tropic in case
anyone else knows the answer.

[dracones]

i experience the same problem
with both my video cards:
the older one : nvidia gforce 2
the newer one: nvidia gforce fx 5200
what i noticed is that the computer freezes
on flash animation according to frame rate.
the computer supports the lower rate.
i have upgraded all the components
but the motherboad and the processor.
i have pentium platform.
i think the processor can't keep up with the
flash animation high frame rate.
recently some 3d games eg counter-strike
start to freeze my computer
with the new videocard!

normance wrote:

> I am seeing the same problem as you. From other websites seems it could have
> been a video driver problem that ATI never got right yet. None of the solutions
> seem to offer a pernament fix. That's the reason while I was looking here,
> since it seems to be flash related in my opinion. I am glad to see you already
> went the route I was about to so I won't need to try that. I have also
> reinstalled SP2 but that did not make a difference. I am planning to go to a
> different brand of video card in the future for the computers I build and stay
> away from ATI or RADEON. I will also keep checking back on this tropic in case
> anyone else knows the answer.

[entanglebit]

For the record, normance and all: it appears this problem may not be
Flash-related at all. I started to see lock-ups even after the Flash uninstall
-- scrolling in and out in Google Maps, for example, which is not Flash-based.
Dell determined it was a "system board" problem, meaning that the problem is
located somewhere on the super-highly-integrated motherboard. Could be
anything, essentially. So let's just call it a "Flash-inspired" problem.

[preston thomas]

I have the same problem with some flash content. I uninstalled IE7 and didnt
have the problem anymore. The IE7 issue was also in accessing programs and
using windows (this freezing for a few seconds) once IE7 was unistalled the
machine was back to normal. Apparently is how IE7 accesses plugins etc. I may
have a faulty plugin affecting it. I did brute unistalls of flash player too.

[normance]

issue was resolved for me by clean format and reinstall back to previous setup.
Guess that means for me, it was not a system board issue since I did this
months ago and have experirenced no problems since. I also tried upgrading to
ie7 before with no improvement, but after proving to be stable, I did the
upgrade with no issues.