M11x R1: Corrupted flash video on Intel graphics w/HW acceleration. Just me?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXeKbwIgMcw

Here is a lengthy demo showing it be corrupted on Intel graphics w/ HW acceleration, fine on Intel without HW acceleration, and fine on nVidia graphics w/HW acceleration. It seems to do this no matter what driver package I run. I had an Acer laptop in 2006 that did something very similar and needed to be replaced, so I guess I'm just trying to find out if this is just me, which would indicate a HW problem, or others too, which would indicate a software issue.

Edit: Strangely, it does not appear to do it when I disable the CPU overclocking in the BIOS. So, it runs fine on Intel w/o Flash HWA or CPU O/C. It works fine on nVidia regardless.

 

When posting issues, its a good idea to include as much info as possible -

Behavior -
Consistently reproducible or intermittent -
If reproducible, steps to reproduce -
Driver versions installed (in this case display) -
System specs -

The above goes a long way in looking at a potential issue, in addition to your youtube video.

 

Got the same thing, intel driver

 

yeah it's been like this ever since they updated flash a couple of months ago. Hardware acceleration does not work with the intel card. Either switch to the nvidia card when playing hd video or disable hardware acceleration in flash settings.

 

Yep, that's been happening to me a lot. It only happens in certain youtube videos, though.

 

Wow, I am glad I am not the only one who has experienced this weird issue.

I sat down last night to catch up on the zero punctuation reviews to be met with a lovely green screen. I assumed it was something to do with the intel graphics and Flash HW acceleration but I wasn't 100% sure.

At least I know now, thanks guys.

 

I wasn't looking for troubleshooting help based on the info I already had, and I included all the relevant details: It's an R1 (CPU, RAM, HDD: all as irrelevant as what panel my LCD uses). It happens on all officially available driver versions including the latest 260.99 Hybrid unofficial set. Obviously, that means it's reproducible, as the YouTube video clearly demonstrates. I didn't happen to just "catch it" on video and I demonstrated what steps cause it to go away and return.

Basically, I am perfectly capable of making my own "diagnosis" with an answer to my specific request (try it; report back), so I wasn't going to send people on a quest to help me solve "my" problem. I just wanted to know if it does it for other users with the same Intel graphics + HW accelerated Flash so I could be sure that it wasn't a HW issue like the time my Acer notebook was doing something similar in 2006 (had to disable ATI's HW acceleration; took an exchange to fix). We got confirmation that it's not just me here today, so I got the "help" I needed.

Thanks!

It seems that it usually happens on the commercial ones with ads (like Vevo).

 

Use Adblock Plus for Firefox. What ads?

 

Same thing happens with DXVA in FFDShow.

 

Perhaps this is the issue you speak of?
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ntel-driver-issue-11xr1-oc-enabled-issue.html

Erawneila never got back to us on the issue....that was almost 3 months ago.


Between this & the general lack of driver updates....we R1 owners are really not feeling the love.

 

Yeah, I think it's all the same kind of thing.

Might be because ATI and nVidia GPUs use ModeH264_VLD_NoFGT and only Intel GPUs use ModeH264_VLD_NoFGT_ ClearVideo for DXVA. Curiously, DXVA on the Intel GPU (when it's working without the above issue by using the Microsoft DTV-DVD Video Decoder) still uses quite a bit of CPU time.

 

I don't know what are you guys doing. I never had any problems.... even 1080p videos work just fine on Intel card. Plus you should be using Dell's hybrid drivers and not install Intel drivers.

 

even 1080p videos work just fine on Intel card
.....
what application? software decode or dxva?

Plus you should be using Dell's hybrid drivers and not install Intel drivers.
.....
I am.

 

Application: Windows Media Player Classic - Home Cinema. It uses DirectX video acceleration, if I am not mistaken, by default. And yes, mine was overclocked since I received it. I can check exactly which BIOS, drivers, etc I am using when I get home. My m11x is still going to be here until Christmas.

Also I didn't notice any heavy CPU usage, but I didn't exactly check either. I just remember the fan doesn't go on that often when you watch 720p videos (99% of mine are that).

 

oh, if you're using mpc-hc then this issue is on their bugtracker. if you're using windows media player, then you are not affected.

edit: If disabling OC will fix the issue, then it is a different one.

 

Yup. It looks like there at three ways around it: Disable OC, disable HWA, or enable nVidia graphics. Never realized that disabling OC worked. FWIW, I never had the bluescreening problem and believe the OC is stable. I never turn it off.

 

It never had anything to do with the resolution. Also, I described that it does it with every driver I could find. It seems that you need to enable overclocking in the BIOS to see this, so I'm willing to bet that if you did you would see the same problem for specific videos.

 

It blocks ads inside commercial videos?

 

I had mine overclocked since the first day it came from Dell. Give me a video link that makes problems and I'll try. I literally watched TONS of videos mine and never had any problems (I mean apart from the annoying screen glare on the airplane). Several full series, like all episodes of Alf, Lost, Chuck, The Big Bang theory, Futurama, Simpsons, etc. All either with Windows Media Player, Media Player Classic - Home Cinema or VLC player.

EDIT: Correction. Now I remember, you're right. Certain 720p .MKV files (not all...) do show exactly what you described. For those I have VLC player installed. I thought that was the problem with MPC-HC codecs...?

 

Sure does. No ads, no distractions, no problem. It's hilarious because I was browsing the Youtube and one of the hosted movies had like, 6 ads. I didn't see any of them.

 

Oh, I notice you all are talking about corruption not on the web. I've run many videos on Windows Media Player and Classic and I've never had any sort of issue with that. As I said on page 1, it's only certain Youtube videos. I've got my R1 OC'd as well.

 

Heh. I think it's two issues.

Try force the Microsoft DTV-DVD Video Decoder in MPC-HC and see if there is any change.

In MPC-HC: View-> Options-> External Filters-> add-> Microsoft DTV-DVD Video Decoder> OK> Click Microsoft DTV-DVD Video Decoder> Prefer> OK.
Make sure that under View> Options> Playback, that Auto-load subtitles is ticked, and make sure under Output that EVR-Custom Pres is selected.
When you play a video Playing[DXVA] should be displayed, otherwise try a different video.

 

Yes, I stand corrected. I was wrong. I *did* have a problem, but I as MPC-HC comes with its own codecs I thought there was a problem with that. Since when I tried playing the same video in VLC it worked perfectly.

I don't remember that happening on youtube videos though. Again if anyone could just give a link of a problematic video it would help.

 

It would not have been using hardware acceleration when you were using the Intel GPU. (VLC only supports GPU acceleration for the nVidia GPU at the moment)

+1

 

I tried. The video playback is better, but with stuttering and pixelated bugs.What's interesting it doesn't happen on all videos. Even though they all claim to be encoded with x264.

You were right about video acceleration. In VLC I get ~20-25% CPU usage, while in MPC-HC around 6-8%.

 

Well, I never had it happen to downloaded files at all... just certain streaming videos with Flash hardware acceleration. I don't doubt that certain files in certain players can trigger it too. If you've got Flash 10.1+, try SouthParkStudios.com. Sometimes I have to play a second video to trigger it.

Probably because VLC is using an internal software-only codec.

 

Well, it doesn't fix the issue we're having though.

Certain YouTube videos, all Hulu videos, etc. It seems that the kind of HWA that triggers it is used more with commercial vids, like the YouTube vids with no syndication or mobile access (usually commercial vids, like Vevo music vids).

 

I had forgotten that you could right-click & disable the Flash HWA. We both learned something. That's probably the method I'll use as a workaround. I hate having to close the page, switch to Nvidia, & reload the page. The whole point of me using the Intel in the first place was to save battery.

 

Hm, I tried disabling Flash Hardware Acceleration but still have the problem.

 

Well, that solved it for me, though... (on my r1; r2 didn't have this issue for no good reason).

Using Adobe "Square" with IE9 beta.

 

It worked for me.


All I did was go to youtube, right click on the video window and selected "settings" then I unchecked the hardware acceleration box.


Then I reloaded the videos that were giving me problems (typically HD flash videos) and they worked, albeit a little slower because it's now using the CPU.

 

What were you testing with? Downloaded video or Flash video? Try disabling OC and let us know what it does for you. Also, sometimes Flash is very unresponsive when you are trying to disable it on a video that is acting up. You might click once, nothing happens, click again, then the first click registers and the box visibly unchecks, then you click to close/exit, then it registers the second click and re-enables HWA just as the close/exit click registers and you never see that it re-checked itself.

 

Well I was just watching the SouthPark videos from the link you gave me. Once I disabled HWA, it was a little bit better, but then I still had lots of stuttering and in general it wasn't watchable.

I don't really care that much tho... I sold the laptop and I'm glad it is going away. But it's still here in my possession so I can play with it.

 

The remaining stuttering was probably their notorious bandwidth issues. When you see it jumping BACKWARDS, you know you're experiencing this corruption issue instead.

 

Sorry to resurrect an old thread but I haven't seen anything more recent than this one.

On 3/16/2011 Dell released the Nvidia 263.08 drivers for our systems, which is great. And from my understanding of reading the two threads regarding this issue, the Intel driver is bundled with the Nvidia install because of the switching.

After installing, the Intel driver seems to have been updated to 8.17.12.6308 (dated 11/8/2010). It also has Nvidia listed as the driver provider.

So they updated it, but it didn't fix the problem.

Flash videos with HWA turned on and OC enabled in the Bios will corrupt. In every browser, even Hulu Desktop videos corrupt. If I turn off the OC and reboot, switch to the 335m video, or disable the HWA and reload the video the corruption goes away.

It may all just not matter anymore, but it would be nice to know if anyone else with an m11xR1 has gotten the corruption to go away with the new drivers. Maybe I need to do a completely clean install or something.

 

No, the Intel driver with the Nvidia 263.08 drivers is still the same version 1994.

 

Try nando4's SetIGP to lower the clock speed and see what happens.

 

Namaiki is correct. Nothing new on the Intel GMA front with the Hybrid Driver set for the Alienware M11xR1 from DELL. Still 1994.

I ran the lastest Intel GMA which at the time was 15.17.16.64.2302 as standalone on my M11xR1 for a few days when tinkering with building Hybrid Driver sets. So it's not a problem to test.

One could do the same and see if something like Intel GMA 15.17.16.64.2302 improves ...whatever this thread is discussing ... and then you'd know if there is a reason to move to a higher Intel version or just to say, "that's just the way it is".

 

I don't normally play flash videos while I'm using the Intel GPU so my sample size isn't that large. but I've tried several flash videos and I haven't had any problems with any of them.

I've tried both flash videos that have ads on them and those that don't have ads on them, all using Firefox 4.0.1 with 263.08/2281 modded drivers and hardware acceleration enabled and haven't encountered any problems. I never really tested flash videos when I was using Dell's 263.08/1994 drivers or the modded 258.96/1994 drivers so I'm can't say whether it would've given me any problems or not.

 

Just want to post and say that I also have this problem. Rev1... does this mean this won't be covered under our alien-ware warranties since this only happens when the system is overclocked?

EDIT: this issue does not happen with every video but i found a way to REPLECATE THE ISSUE EVERY TIME!

Try any video from www.southparkstudios.com, any south park episode will do this (the advertisements will run fine, but not the episodes themselves)

I guess if you have a m11x R1 you can test it with the above link. I think I'll be sending mine for warrenty repair if I can't get a software fix for it.

 

Oh yes yes yes, this happens to me too. Even on non-HW acceleration browsers. Happens on certain Youtube vids. Very weird.

 

What browser, and what version of Flash? (Since Flash 10.1 and newer can do hardware acceleration)

 

Don't know which version of flash I have and I use Google Chrome dev frame.

 

Try right-click a YouTube video and click 'Show video info' to check what kind of video rendering is being used.

 

m11x rev1 (so far as I know, this is the only one affected)

Chrome version 11.0.696.71
Flash version 10.3.181.14

 

Try right-click a YouTube video and click 'Show video info' to check what kind of video rendering is being used.

My first quote to AlienOnions was only because it was mentioned that video decode hardware acceleration was not enabled, which I would like to confirm.

 

Warranty repairs wont fix this. It's not a hardware issue......but the issue is the extremely old drivers for the Intel GPU that Dell is using.


If you want a fix, you can look up the hybrid drivers here on the forums. A couple of smart forum-goers figured out a way to create their own hybrid drivers, and you can use a newer, better intel driver which wont have these issues.

 

Unfortunately I'm having the corruption issue as well with the Intel 2281 drivers on those South Park videos. I haven't seen any issues yet on Youtube videos though.

 

Like the other guy said, there's no issue with all youtube videos, so does it count? On youtube videos it shows "software video rendering" and "software video decoding"

When I went to the south park videos, right clicked, and unchecked the "use hardware acceleration", then refreshed the page, the problem went away. I checked it, refreshed, and it came back.

So the problem is definitely hardware acceleration.

Still, dell needs to fix this issue for sure, its probably a driver issue and a simple fix. If we all tried to invoke our warranties into fixing this it would be much cheaper for them to release a software fix than to give us all R2's.... I'm going to call support and ask for a warranty repair.

 

Mine does this same thing on Hulu, but only on ads, and only every 5 min on the video, such as Family Guy. No problems on Nvidia. I don't know if I have AC on, but it is overclocked.