My Windows 7 computer works great in every way except within the last week,
whenever I play a YouTube video, half to three quarters of the way through the
video, my monitor goes black. No video and no monitor. I have to restart my
computer, it opens again normally. This does not occur when I play videos,
which are archived, on my hard drive. Thanks for your assistance.
In this excerpt from
Answercast #70, I look at a case where a computer suddenly shuts down while
watching online video.
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Monitor goes black
So, by your âmonitor going black,â I have to assume that, since you have to
restart your computer, that itâs not just your monitor going black.
Itâs your computer actually crashing.
In other words, your computerâs no longer operating.
Is it just the monitor?
If you could, while the monitor was black, actually be able to do things
like type the keyboard sequence to shut down your computer (Ctrl, Escape, U, and
then Enter, I think would be the appropriate thing.)
Give that a look the next time youâre looking with the screen up. If you can
use the keyboard sequence to shut down your computer, then the computer is
still running. Itâs not just the monitor.
Check video driver
So, in a case like this, a couple of different things come to mind.
Since youâre streaming YouTube videos, the very first thing that I think of
are video drivers.
When youâve got video on your hard drive versus video that youâre streaming
over the internet, itâs not just where itâs coming from thatâs
different. Itâs very possible that the video format thatâs being used
in those two different instances is in fact different. The reason thatâs
important is that it is possible that a video driver can have problems or can
be susceptible to issues with one format that itâs not susceptible to the
others.
So for example, itâs possible that the video driver could randomly crash
when playing YouTube videos regardless of where theyâre coming from versus
playing some other video that happens to be stored on your hard drive.
So the very first thing I would do is check for updated video drivers for
your video card to make sure that isnât a problem.
Check for heat
The other thing that comes to mind right away is overheating.
Normally, you would assume that playing a video from your local hard drive
might not be as process intensive or as heat generating. I actually would
assume that as well.
However, like I said, these are different video formats that are typically
involved between the two. It is possible that the video driver (or whatever
software is actually involved in displaying the video) requires more CPU
horsepower â therefore, the CPU itself is heating up more.
It is possible that your computer is very simply overheating.
So, in a case like that, make sure:
-
That all of the ventilation is good;
-
That youâve cleared out all of the dust from inside the machine;
-
Keep an eye on the fact that your machine may simply be sensitive to heat
and take the appropriate steps to make sure that it has the opportunity to get
cool air and to run with air flowing through it unobstructed.
Screensaver?
And finally, this one seems really odd. Itâs really off the wall but I have
to include it for completeness⊠and that is: Iâm going to assume you have
already determined that this is not just your screensaver kicking in!
Many screen savers, or many monitors, will turn themselves off into a power
saving mode after certain amount time of inactivity.
Depending on what âinactivityâ looks like to the monitor, it could be that
since you havenât touched the keyboard for awhile or you havenât wiggled the
mouse for awhile, gosh⊠âMaybe I should turn off the monitor because heâs not
actually here.â
Thatâs unlikely, but itâs such an easy one to test. The next time it
happens, wiggle the mouse, type the Shift key on your keyboard, do something to
prove to the computer that youâre still in front of it.
If that suddenly makes they screen come back without having to reboot your
computer, then you know that you need to look into things like the screen saver
settings in your computer and potentially the power management settings for
your display device.
So those are three things that come to mind: video drivers, overheating, and
power saving or screen saving type settings.
Answercast 70 â Why does Outlook still download deleted Gmail messages?
Or perhaps going to sleep?
Quoted:
to shut down your computer (Ctrl, Escape, U and then Enter)
Take note that this key sequence is for Windows XP and other similar OS (98, CE, et cetera). Windows Vista until Windows 8 have the sequence: Ctrl + Esc, Left Arrow Key, then Enter; in order to shut the system down. Just noticed that the user is using Windows 7.
I have experienced some cases of âcodeâ embedded in video files. Most of these attempts are malicious â attempts to open compromised web pages or download other code while the user is âbusyâ watching the video. I donât know if all of these vunerabilities have been plugged yet.
That said, the screen saver could well be what is crashing, as I have seen some of the more complicated (or interactive) screensavers crash if another graphics-intensive process is running when they start up.
(1) Try another browser eg. Chrome, Opera or Firefox
(2) Download the latest Adobe Flash player {free}
(3) Any Heat issues can be monitored with FanSpeed program {free}
Jp