If a video is streaming on a computer but not seen is it really playing?

Forums: Computers, Pc, Streaming Video, Video Card Issue, Computer Issue
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My laptop maybe having an inevitable system killing/death knell possibly involving the graphic cards. Recently, I get a very vague blue screen of death and my computer reboots itself. Prior to the crash, the video gets distorted and overly pixelated and jumpy while the sound remains perfectly fine.

Always (so far) after it reboots, the system is fine. It only happens when I'm watching a video and usually when I have my computer on for a while and my computer seems to be overheating.

But out of curiosity, if one has an online video is playing on one browser tab but it's playing in the background while another browser tab is displayed on the screen, is the video card still being used for the streaming video and is the video technically being played visually in the computer system despite not being shown in that time frame to the computer's user or is it just technically playing the accompanying audio until the video is brought forth into the foreground then the video card is once again activated to do its thing and graphically depict the video?

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Type: Question • Score: 4 • Views: 3,685 • Replies: 6

View best answer, chosen by tsarstepan

@tsarstepan,

This may help.

http://www.howstuffworks.com/graphics-card.htm

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@tsarstepan,

tsarstepan wrote:

the video gets distorted and overly pixelated and jumpy while the sound remains perfectly fine.

i only have one thing to say, if you don't stop it you'll go blind Cool

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@tsarstepan,

If you had "Real Player" installed it can be a pest as it repeatedly installs multiple times. Press ctrl-alt-del for task manager. Go to processes. You will be multiple copies of "real". Delete excess copies.

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@talk72000,

Thanks. Sure it's not a software issue or Real Player. Never use it anymore. The problem always happens when I'm using my Google Chrome and streaming video from sites like Netflix, Youtube, or Hulu, etc....

Usually can feel an excessive build up of heat from my computer.

It's very intermittent. I can still watch hours of video and not get it to happen. Just watched one of the latest episodes of SGU (Stargate Universe) and though the picture quality wasn't great, nothing happened. The picture quality could have been a Hulu issue. Netflix still looks great and when I watch HD movie trailers at full screen, the picture quality is wonderful.

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@tsarstepan,

I had something similar (although I didn't notice it related to video play) . The fan on the main CPU chip had died and after while in warm weather the display would break up and the computer freeze. Wouldn't boot properly until it cooled down. Ended up replacing/upgrading the motherboard.

Maybe the heat is related to overclocking the chip?

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@tsarstepan,

Where are the Phil Forum folks when you need them?

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If a video is streaming on a computer but not seen is it really playing?

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