Firefox 4.0b5 is now crashing NVidia video driver on my VPC-Z

Meh...

If there are lots of opened browser tabs / windows, launching a new Firefox window will produce a blank screen for few seconds, and then Windows will restart the graphics driver...

I had this effect with FoxIt Reader 2.x sometimes - with some tricky PDFs, start scrolling them - and BAM! black screen and then driver restart. If you are insistent on viewing that PDF, after 2-3 driver restarts Windows will finally BSOD and reboot.

This happens >only< with NVidia graphics, when the VPC-Z is in the docking station.

Yesterday I updated stock NVidia+Intel driver for VPC-Z to the 189.99 from Andrew08's compilation... but the same problem persists.

I just cannot get to the root cause of this problem... It could be either buggy graphics driver, or buggy network driver... or some USB driver? These are the only things specific to the notebook being in the docked mode.

Previously, before I reinstalled Windows (as one of the crashes totally corrupted the system), I had random freezes - but now they are gone courtesy of, I guess, different driver versions... Probably the same thing that triggers video driver restart was triggering system freezes before.

This is just SO annoying... VPC-Z is supposed to be high-end notebook... but these random issues with instability are just not acceptable

Does anybody else have similar issues?

 

You do know that you're running a beta version of Firefox don't you?

 

You have to disable the hardware acceleration witch is on by default now on Firefox 4 beta 5. You can do that in options ==> advanced ==> untick "use hardware acceleration when available". That should help with the Firefox driver related crashes.

 

hmm i tried the firefox 4 beta 6 without problem...
let me try again

edit: tried again today loading 5 pages of ie5 demo at the same time, i realized decreased fps but no blank screen...

 

It does not matter - the same bug happens with other applications sometimes, like FoxIt reader, like I said in the original post.

Application itself >cannot< and >should not< bring the correctly operating video driver down. Period. Any video driver restart is a clear indication of either buggy driver OR hardware malfunction.

This bug is very hard to intentionally trigger - it just happens sometimes, at completely random occasions (and, of course, when you do not expect it) It happens ONLY when the Z is docked and NVidia graphics is active.

Mind you, there were previous threads related to VPC-Z system crashes when playing back YouTube clips and/or 1080p videos - this could very well be the same bug, somehow related to the video acceleration (FoxIt is probably using DirectX I guess).

There is definitely something wrong with VPC-Z drivers (or, worse, hardware)... but the nature of the problem makes it extremely hard to tie it to a specific component.

@Andrew08 - thx, I'll uncheck the video acceleration and see if that reduces the problems.

 

fyi i am using 189.99 with 2141 not 2189 because 2189 sometimes make error.

edit:
did windows tell you something about driver error?

 

Here a are two solutions:
1.Google Chrome
2.Non-beta version of Fiirefox.

 

chrome 7 is still beta and unknown...
ie 9 beta is 4 days away from release
firefox 4 beta 6 is in nightly...

i don't remember any other browser that support gpgpu...

 

Even final release versions of applications can do something as serious as bring down a whole system. Remember that you are running a beta and you are using a custom Nvidia driver version (which you don't have much control over because of your integrated/dedicated setup). Report your problem to Firefox feedback and hope that this will get resolved next beta or by final product.

 

I also saw this issue with Firefox 4.0b5 but with chrome it is very stable and no crashes so far.

If you want to give chrome 7.0.517 a bash just add --enable-gpu-plugin --enable-gpu-rendering --enable-accelerated-2d-canvas --enable-accelerated-compositing after the chrome.exe

 

Nope, just driver restart and nothing else... Event Log is empty, too.

As I said -this also happened with the stock NVidia/Intel drivers from Sony.

I somehow highly doubt it is a Firefox problem - as I can also trigger it with FoxIt reader.

At least, no driver restart happened in the last 24 hours since I switched the hardware acceleration off in Firefox.

I wish Sony could just update these hybrid drivers with the latest NVidia drivers available... we are severely crippled with the hybrid graphics especially in case of such issues...