Pc Crashing Due To Video Issues

Hello,

My computer has recently started crashing and I believe it is display related. I have a TV hooked up through HDMI as a second monitor I use to watch youtube constantly. Usually I have an average of 10-12 tabs open in Firefox, videos lined up to watch and things i'm working on. Recently my computer is crashing when I have a video full screen on my TV. It's never done it if it wasn't full screen. Seems like the more tabs open or if a tab is processing something the higher the chances it will crash if a video is full screen. Sometimes both screens freeze and after 30-60 seconds I regain control and can exit full screen but sometimes the computer goes down. Usually it completely loses connection with both the monitor and TV when it goes down.

What are some options that are causing this? I blew it out with air and put a fan on it, I really don't think it's overheating. Is my video card going out or something else? I think my tower is maybe 3 years old, something pre-built from Walmart. I know very little about computers.

Thanks!

Stats:
Manufacturer: Cyberpower PC
Processor: AMD FX 4300 Quad Core Processor 3.80 GHz
RAM 8GB
64 bit operating system windows 10
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce GT 730
Monitor is HP around 21" TV is Sanyo around 40"

 

Not to rain on your parade, but that is not a very heavy duty graphics card. As time goes on and video technology advances, it requires more processing power. I would limit the open tabs to half of your current load, and see if the problem persists.

We would need a specific model on the card to know if it has a 64 or 128 bit bandwith and if it is DDR3 or DDR5.

 

I see, so you think the reason the problem is just starting to occur is because it is having to process better videos, makes sense. I would have never thought of that.

It says on the card ZOTAC GT 730 Zone edition 2GB 64bit DDR3
If you need a PN number or a N number I have those.

 

The bandwith is on the low end unfortunately. Could be a big part of the problem.

 

Can you simplify that a bit more for me please? That means too many tabs are causing too much data going through the graphics card? Does maximizing a video on my TV really put a much bigger strain? Also if the tabs aren't playing why are they affecting it so much? Thank you.

 

Imagine bandwith as a road or highway. If 64 bit is a two lane road, 512 bit is a six lane highway. 2048 bit may as well be a double wide six lane expressway.

Even if tabs are open and not playing, they could still be buffering the video which would still create a load on the system. Depending on the length and resolution of the video, that will affect the time to buffer/system load as well.

 

I see. I guess I don't understand what information runs through the graphics card. I thought only stuff on the screen would be putting any load on the graphics. I never have stuff running slowly unless I have a page open that is requiring something weird (running weird scripts or trying to load ads) and never have to buffer anything. It always crashes out the blue. I'll try to run fewer tabs.

 

OK let's find the truth about the crash.

Download Who Crashed from here Download@MajorGeeks

Click on Analyze to begin scan.
Then Paste picture on the site As a windows snip.



I normally use Window Snip to take a good picture.

 

But if that was the problem, it would have been problem from the start. The OP said this problem only recently started. It could still be a graphics problem, I am just saying it is not because the card is not heavy duty enough.

Have you tried it with Chrome or Edge?

How much free disk space do you have?

Before assuming it is some other hardware, for sure I would swap in another known good PSU to make sure it is not a power issue.

 

Sites don't remain static, nor does the tech. underlying them; YT has been making changes on a pretty regular basis, keeping up with, even getting ahead of , the so-called 'web standards'

 

Which is why I said to try a different browser. It does not take a heavy duty graphics solution to view a web page. 10 - 12 maybe, but again, that would have been an issue from the beginning.

Changing standards does not imply you need more horsepower. A new driver maybe, but not more horsepower. If it did, it could mean millions and millons of budget notebooks, cells phones, tablets and PCs with low horsepower integrated graphics would not be able to view those sites. Pretty sure advertisers and investors would not be happy with that.

 

Yes. Firefox is a memory hog.
And...

2GB of video RAM is not enough.
Try reducing that to 5-6 tabs.

 

My disk space do you mean hard drive space? If so 330 GB. I do play movies in Chrome because of Firefox being such a hog when streaming movies (from questionable sources I don't pay for) it slows everything down. I'm not sure what Edge is, haven't heard of it. I don't like the way Chrome is set up though, I have Firefox attuned to how I like browsing the web.

I don't think I've had it crash when I had Chrome full screen but usually if I am watching movies I make sure I don't have a ton of tabs open. What gets me is every day I keep up with about 5 youtubers and one of them gives links to 5-8 other youtube videos so I open them all up then go through them, closing them after I watch them. I've never had it crash if it wasn't full screen, so far I've been only making it full screen if I have very few tabs open and haven't had a crash. I prefer to watch everything full screen but I'll do it this way until I can afford to upgrade to a different computer. I kind of think its a combination of videos out there requiring more power and my aging system.

 

Thank you everyone for the help!

 

It's Microsoft's new web browser that ships with Windows 10.

 

What do you know, it is indeed on my computer. That looks suspiciously like Microsoft Explorer, I have concerns.

 

Did you try running half the tabs yet?

Some parts don't get better with age...

 

Ya, I'm just not running full screen while watching my youtube videos. I'm not a fan of it crashing so I'm scared to test it to see exactly how many tabs I can do before it crashes. Also I'm not sure if some videos are requiring more than others. I keep two emails and twitter tabs open 24/7, then for example the tab I'm typing this on then the video I'm watching on my TV, plus two more videos I want to watch after this one. To run less tabs I would have to bookmark them and close them but that's more of a pain that just watching it without full screen. I'll upgrade maybe next year and get back to my normal, haha. Thank you for the help.

 

Well I'm curious.

How many tabs can you keep open?

 

As many as I want as long as I don't make any of the full screen. I had 14 open when I got home today and started watching videos. I'll see if I can test it this weekend when I have some time to deal with it crashing. Though I'm worried it won't ever be an exact number, seemed like it would crash with very random numbers of tabs open but I never counted. I do remember shouting "come on, I didn't even have much open" once before. It all has to do with making them full screen on my TV.

 

Not sure what you mean by "Microsoft Explorer". There is no such thing.

If you meant "Internet Explorer", Edge is totally different, inside and out from Internet Explorer. While it had a slow start, it just keeps getting better and better.

If you meant "Windows Explorer" (which is now called "File Explorer" in Windows 10), that just makes sense. Most of Microsoft's products are taking on a common aesthetics theme whether it be Word, Windows 10, or Edge.

Don't let biases from past experiences with Internet Explorer cause you to prejudge Edge. As I noted, it is totally different. And for a good reason. Microsoft wants the world to get away from Internet Explorer just as much, if not more so than the IE haters out there!

Not sure what other disk space you may be referring to, but yes, I mean hard disk space. Specifically, the amount of free space available on your boot drive. But if you have other drives, make sure they are not full either.

While 8GB is nice chunk of RAM, it can be a bottleneck if you have too many programs running that are doing too many things.

If possible, if you can see a crash might be coming, check Task Manager to see what kind of CPU, Memory and Disk utilization you have.

Did you dink with the Page File settings? If so, it is highly unlikely you are an expert in virtual memory management. But the developers at Microsoft are! So let Windows manage your PF. Windows, especially Windows 10, knows what it is doing.