Dell Latitude C400 Notebook Logo
Posted on Sep 12, 2008
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C400 Display problem related to Flash player

I have a Dell C400 laptop I got used from the company I am working for. It worked fine (at my knowledge) before I got it but I decided to format the HDD for a clean start with clean OS update. I have 512 MB of RAM, Intel® Pentium® III Mobile 1200MHz and Intel ® 82830M Graphics Controller
I installed Windows XP professional with all necessary parts and updates. I got all available updates from Dell Support including BIOS version A12. No other applications just a clean Windows.
Everything is running perfectly until I installed adobe Flash player plug-in.
After installing the flash player, browsing is terribly slow and if I run a flash video the computer halts intensely and the CPU usage up to 90%(IE) . After running webpage with Flash all video based or graphical process uses high CPU power and are working really slow.
If I uninstall the Flash player and reboot, the computer starts working normally again.
I am a computer technician myself and I really think I have tried everything, for example:
- Try several versions of flash player (7, 8, 9.0.47, 9.0.115, 9.0.124)
- Try different versions of the display drivers (the newest driver packages from both Intel support and dell support)
- Try different types of browsers and browser plug-ins (IE6, IE7, Firefox, Goggle Chrome)
- Tried the Hardware Acceleration troubleshoot in the Display properties.
None of these have lead to any success in finding a solution.
I even learned that the Intel ® 82830M Graphics Controller appears as two adapter in the Devise Manager (Intel says its suppose to be like that) and if I disable one of them (the one market as function 1) the flash player works fine and I can watch a flash video for about two minutes and then the computer shuts down without any warning or security log or anything.
All my testing have lead me to the conclusion that this must be some sort of a conflict between the Flash player plug-in and the video-controller (driver or VBIOS). It is like the Flash player uses up all video memory and it does not get dumped again until I reboot the computer.
I have been searching the Web for any clue of what can be wrong without luck, I have read what there is on bouth the Dell Support, Adobe Support and Intel Support with out luck

Yes I have considered using the computer without the Flash player plug-in, but that is getting more and more difficult for there are so many websites out there using Flash.

Can anyone help, this have been hunting me for weeks now

Thanks in advanced
Tumi

  • Tumi_Iceland Sep 15, 2008

    I am a afraid this did not help.

    I downloaded and installed the Intel® Chipset Software Installation Utility and then reinstalled the display drivers provided by Dell support.

    If I now open a flash video from the web (YouTube for instance) it runs smoothly for about one minute and the computer shuts down.

    If I only open a website that uses flash, it will run smoothly for few minutes and then the computer slows down. After that the computer is really slow until rebooted.

    The Intel 830M uses a dynamic memory allocation and I wonder if that has something to do with this and if so, is it possible (and then how to) configure the size and location of that memory and if it is possible to monitor the memory usage of the video controller?

  • Krish30 Mar 10, 2009

    I have the exact same problem. Did you solve the problem tumi?

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Arnold G

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  • Posted on Sep 12, 2008
Arnold G
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Update intel graphics driver 830M and intel chipset also

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