Video card crashes and Windows 7 BSOD when Flash Video is Played

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vaticanslayer

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My system:
CPU: Intel 2600K @ stock speeds
Video Card: ATI XFX HD 6950 @ stock speeds
Ram: 8GB (2x4GB) G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series (PC3 10666) DDR3
Motherboard: Asus P8P67 Pro Rev 3.1
Hard Drive: 2x256GB Crucial M4 (Raid 0)
PSU: Antec EarthWatts EA750 750W Power Supply
OS: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit


Problem: Upon watching flash-based video (Amazon Prime service, Youtube, etc.) if I go to another page that also has flash (usually in the form of a banner ad) the operating system will freeze for a few seconds and the flash-video playing will green screen (the video playing turns all green) while the audio plays uninterrupted. While this is going on, in the bottom right of the desktop it will pop up saying that the Display Driver Stopped Responding and has recovered. I can then choose to close out the file playing to no ill effect until I go to another page with another flash video / flash banner. When this happens, without fault, the computer will BSOD listing ATIKMDAG.sys as the culprit, forcing a restart to fix the problem. This problem occurs while using the ATI HD 6950.

A very similar problem occurs if I'm using the ATI HD 6750 except instead of green screening the video, it will crash whatever browser I am in (firefox, chrome, IE, etc.). Upon closing the browser I am free to open up another flash video without fault (no BSOD) most of the time. Rarely, however, I will run into a BSOD after this problem has occurred again leading it to say that ATIKMDAG.sys is the culprit.

I have tried diagnosing the problem but have not ran into a solution. Right clicking the flash file and disabling hardware acceleration will work most of the time, allowing me to watch videos without fault, but occasionally a BSOD with ATIKMDAG.sys listed as the culprit will still occur. Given my extensive testing, I really do not think it is a hardware issue but instead a software one - and given that I can watch videos fine all day long using WMP or VLC and that the problem occurs only when watching FLASH video or a flash ad is on the screen, it seems to be related to adobe flash.


Just from my testing:

What I'm confident it's not:
Video Card: Problem has occurred with multiple ATI video cards (6950 and 6750)
Operating System: Problem has occurred through multiple formats
Hard Drive: Problem has occurred through multiple hard drives (OCZ Agility II, dual Force 3 GT's and dual Crucial M4's).
Ram: Problem has occurred through multiple sets of ram (OCZ, G.Skill, PNY)

What it could be but unlikely:
Power Supply: Tests fine with a power supply tester and other than the specific problem listed I get no random restarts or blue screens.

Possible problems:
CPU: I ran Prime95 for 24 hours and received no errors, but could be an issue I suppose.
Motherboard: I received this board in a RMA/replacement because of the Intel SATA issue.


So, again, given the extensive testing I've done hardware does not seem to be at fault and the problem indeed seems to be software. However, after doing multiple formats the problem still has not went away. Does anyone have any clues of how to fix this problem? I'm at my wits end here.
 
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G


Hello, I have had a very similar problem today with a new build I did for a friend.

Common factors:

Win 7 x64
Crash on playing Flash video in a browser
ATI Graphics Card

Might I ask what version of flash player you have installed? I am going to take a stab in the dark and assume you used the latest version 11.2.

I have managed to resolve my problem by upgrading flash player to the current BETA version 11.3 - and would suggest you try this...

vaticanslayer

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Thank you for the link. I have 100% secunia system score, all programs are up to date including adobe flash player. So nothing to update from the looks of it.
 

vaticanslayer

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Thank you again for responding. I had the latest graphic drivers for the ATI 6950 - I even cleaned all the drivers off using drivesweeper and reinstalled to see if that would help but sadly, no, the crashes did not stop. I have found the problem to be limited to ATI/AMD cards, however, as my new nvidia GTX 680 does not suffer from these crashes. I'm not sure if was a conflict with the ATI/AMD card and the ASUS motherboard or what but the nvidia card hasn't crashed once (been nearly a week).

Thanks again for trying to help friend.
 

internetlad

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right click on your flash video

disable hardware acceleration.

If this doesn't help i'm stumped. Had a similar issue a while back. (wouldn't crash the system but i think it would crash the browser.) and disabling hardware acceleration fixed it completely.
 
G

Guest

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Hello, I have had a very similar problem today with a new build I did for a friend.

Common factors:

Win 7 x64
Crash on playing Flash video in a browser
ATI Graphics Card

Might I ask what version of flash player you have installed? I am going to take a stab in the dark and assume you used the latest version 11.2.

I have managed to resolve my problem by upgrading flash player to the current BETA version 11.3 - and would suggest you try this.

Relevant thread that pointed me in the right direction: http://forums.adobe.com/message/4367854

You will need to download the pluging installer for 11.3 for other browsers for opera and firefox, and the IE version for IE - however please note that for some reason this installer only installs 11.3 on IE 32bit and the 64 bit version of IE still has 11.2 flash after the install.

Also note that if you want to use 11.3 on Google Chrome, you will need to download the latest BETA version of Google Chrome, which includes the 11.3 version of the Flash player.

I hope this information helps you with this extremely frustrating issue.
 
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vaticanslayer

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Hi friend - I was using the newest at the time 11.2. After upgrading to the nvidia gtx 680 this problem went away never to return (have used it close to a month). I wanted to see if your suggestion could help anyone else with this problem so I tried the 6750 card (I sold the 6950, so didn't have it to test). I installed the 11.3 beta and my problem did not go away in IE (tried the 32-bit since you said the 64-bit would still be 11.2). Oddly enough, though, the problem went completely away in Chrome. I used it for a couple days and I had *zero* of those crashes in Chrome (before on 11.2 crashes would happen while using Chrome as well). So it looks like it half fixed the problem lol... at least it does seem to narrow it down to being a software conflict of some kind since the 11.3 beta seems to solve the issue in one browser! Thanks for the suggestion kind sir and I hope your suggestion helps future people with this very annoying problem.
 

wizard25

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i visited http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/find-version-flash-player.html using my Firefox and the Flash version that popped there was : 1.5.502.110, for Windows 7 (64-bit).
Using the same link, through Chrome i got the following:
11.5.31.2, Windows 7 (32-bit)
From what i understand, Chrome doesn't use the OS's Flash Player, but has its own built in Flash Player. I also understand that Chrome actually updates its own flash player on its own (automatically).
For some reason though, Chrome couldn't pick up that i am using a 64-bit Windows 7, or maybe Chrome doesn't support Flash player 64-bit.
My ATI Radeon HD driver is: atiumdag 9.2.0.0 (Catalyst 12.10) / Win7 64 (from GPU-Z). When i try updating the driver through Windows device manger, Windows says that this is the latest version (i tried doing this on 11th of November 2012). Windows does give me the following date for the driver: 27th of September 2012
From what i understand, the BSODs that are caused by the conflict between Flash x64 and the ATI Radeon HD drivers fall into two categories:

1. The driver is the culprit:
This was probably caused by the following module: atikmpag.sys (atikmpag+0x6DCC)
Bugcheck code: 0x116 (0xFFFFFA800AFCC010, 0xFFFFF88005806DCC, 0x0, 0xD)
Error: VIDEO_TDR_ERROR
file path: C:\Windows\system32\drivers\atikmpag.sys
product: AMD driver
company: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
description: AMD multi-vendor Miniport Driver

2. The Windows video scheduler crashes:
This was probably caused by the following module: watchdog.sys (watchdog+0x122F)
Bugcheck code: 0x119 (0x1, 0x498CC, 0x49CF2, 0x49CF1)
Error: VIDEO_SCHEDULER_INTERNAL_ERROR
file path: C:\Windows\system32\drivers\watchdog.sys
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: Watchdog Driver

The above are excerpts from a program that analyzes minidumps, called WhoCrashed (free).

I can't find a permanent solution tho this daunting problem, but i have a workaround:
I only use Chrome now because it has the 32 bit implementation of Flash Player.
I don't watch downloaded .flv or .swf files.
VLC player also crashes when using it to watch .flv files
This could be because VLC either uses the local (OS's) Flash Player's libraries to play flv movies, OR:
VLC Player has chunks of the x64 Flash Player inside itself, (which chunks could possibly be the pieces that are incompatible with the ATI Radeon HD drivers).
 
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