***WARNING: this post is 99% rant and 1% helpful tip. You have been warned! ***
Maybe you have seen it too. You’re browsing along happily and… nVidia drivers poop the bed (a.k.a. “Display driver stopped responding and has recovered”), and if you are really lucky, you have to force a hard boot of your system. At the very least, your browser crashes. Fun, fun!
So 99.9% of you won’t give even the slightest damn about this, but for ME, this is huge. And let’s be honest, given how many read this new blog of mine, .1% equates to someone’s left elbow. Anyway, I’ve had my Lenovo W520 for about 10 months now. Ran like a dream until I tried running any kind of Flash video embedded in IE 9 (and at one point Chrome and FF crapped out too but only required a Flash update). Given how much YouTube I look at (training, all training! really…) this was going to be an issue. I tried updating my nVidia drivers, many times. Tried uninstalling and re-installing the drivers, the browsers, Flash. Changed my setting between nVidia Optimus mode and discrete. Flashed the BIOS. Cursed and waved my fists. Downloaded the nVidia command center, which is awful BTW. Nothing worked, and so I just got used to using other browsers whenever I could.
No snarky “OH, you’re using IE, THAT is the problem” or “Adobe is the evil, just don’t install it”!! I am an IT professional who works for lots of clients who DO use those technologies and I must be able to support them, end of story. I eventually got into a QA position where IE9 was required, and the site I was testing was FULL of Flash videos. So back into the depths of hell known as support forums I went.
nVidia, IE and Adobe forums sent me down a hundred useless paths and I almost gave up. I eventually stumbled upon this little nugget. At first it seemed another dead end but then, I saw it [clouds part, rays of light stream down from on high]. Wait….what? Right click the freaking video and turn off hardware acceleration?
That’s it?! Well, I mean, I never even knew you COULD right-click the video and mess with Adobe settings. Besides, normally my browser crashes so fast I don’t have the option. So I tried, about 8 or 9 times because, you see, I had to right click, change the setting and hit close all before IE crashed. But eventually it happened, and it worked. So far so good! So maybe you have run into similar issues and this helps you. If so, you are welcome 
Now, back to watching “Call Me Maybe” covers. I mean, MVC training videos. [snickers]