Adobe Flash causing computer to BSoD

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I was watching a YouTube video a while ago and my computer blue screened. I though nothing of it at start, but whenever I watch any video (basically anything that gets rendered (haven't tried games though)) after a period of time it blue screens. However, every time it seems to be different, occasionally it lasts a few minutes other times a few hours.

It only occurs with videos, say if I listen to music on Bandcamp, Grooveshark etc. It's fine, and the computer never blue screens.

After that, I was assuming that its a buggy flash version so I updated it, though it still seemed to blue screen. However, due to computer settings I wouldn't see the actual blue screen, it would just give me the Windows has recovered from a serious error message after login. So I changed the settings to I can see the actual blue screen.

When the computer blue screened again, I saw the driver causing the issue. It was nv4_disp.dll, however I just updated the Nvidia driver to the latest version, so I was under the impression that it is still flash causing the issue.

However, after trying basically everything to rectify it, nothing seems to help. I even tried changing browser, though it didn't even make the slightest difference.

More information:

OS: Windows XP Professional SP 3
Graphics Card: GeForce 9400 GT
Driver version: 285.58 (It says its the latest)

Blue screen dump file info:

Bugcheck name: KERNEL_MODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED_M (0x1000008E)
Another bugcheck name: THREAD_STUCK_IN_DEVICE_DRIVER (0xEA)
Caused by: nv4_disp.dll
windows-xp
flash
bsod
asked on Super User Dec 6, 2011 by Mythrillic • edited Dec 8, 2011 by Mythrillic

2 Answers

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As I have explored about this problem, I got some sort of discussions that seriously shown this problem with the flash player with the Nvidia drivers. Finally i got some troubleshooting steps to try and reason may be.

Check these links for know more about this:

http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/topic/287742-xp-bsod-watchdogsys-and-nv4-dispdll/
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1527315

Check this nvidia forum link regarding this problem.

answered on Super User Dec 9, 2011 by Niranjan Singh
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Sometimes it helps to disable hardware acceleration.

Follow these steps:

  1. Right-click on desktop and choose Personalize
  2. Click on Display
  3. Click on Change Display Settings
  4. Click Advanced Settings
  5. Click the Troubleshoot Tab
  6. Click Change Settings (if it's not grayed out; mine is)
  7. Move the Hardware acceleration slider towards none to reduce or turn off video hardware acceleration.
  8. Click OK, and then click Restart Now.

If it is grayed out: The problem may be with the ATI or Nvidia installed drivers. You would have to remove the installed video driver and use the generic Windows video driver to disable the hardware acceleration.

[EDIT]

As you do not wish to disable hardware acceleration, the thread BSOD with NV4_Disp.dll error contains the following suggestions :

  1. If using a graphics card that is factory overclocked - replace the card by one that is not overclocked
  2. Weak power supply - try removing CD/DVD drives and see if the problem improves
  3. RAM problem - test the memory using memtest86.

This thread suggests better scrubbing of the Nvidia drivers before reinstalling them. This other thread also suggests installing the latest DirectX version before that. I would add to that the advice of doing a full patch of Windows (including optional updates).

I remark that XP only supports DirectX 9, while upgrading to Windows 7 will get you the much better DirectX 11 (might require a newer video card).

answered on Super User Dec 10, 2011 by harrymc • edited Mar 20, 2017 by Community

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