Short video freezes when starting playing video W10 Nvidia

Hi.

I have a GeForce GTX 1080.

Two weeks ago I got hit with the 1809 update for Windows 10.

Ever since then I have the same problem that was described in this thread: W10 Video start freeze Solved - Windows 10 Forums

When I start playing a video in MPC-HC, SMPlayer or Windows Media Player, the whole screen freezes for about a second or two.

If I press next and go to another video, it freezes again. But not if I just pause it or select the same video from favorites.

The freezes don't happen when I play the video on a monitor connected to the integrated Intel UHD Graphics 630.

Short freezes like this also occur when starting Steam or a web browser and when viewing Windows Display settings and clicking on monitors in there.


Before the windows update I had very old GeForce drivers, 22.21.13.8205 - 382.05. After the update Windows has probably used a more recent driver, but certainly not as old as 391.01 mentioned in the older issue.

Even after downloading and installing the 419.35 drivers the freezes aren't gone.

Starting windows in safe mode helps, because then the Nvidia drivers aren't used. Clean mode doesn't help.

If I go to Display settings in Windows and then to Graphics settings and set the MPC-HC to use the power saving GPU (the integrated Intel UHD Graphics 630) then the freeze happens only on opening the first file. Switching to next file doesn't freeze.


I've been tinkering with the computer for the past two weeks but still no progress. Do you have any ideas what to try next? Thank you in advance.

Hi tired1 and welcome to the forum

Please try this:
Download Display Driver Uninstaller
Extract DDU on desktop
Download these drivers Nvidia 419.67 and save it to desktop

Reboot computer in to the Safe Mode use option one
Run Display Driver Uninstaller
Click on the options
Check Prevent downloads of drivers from Windows update when Windows search for a driver for a device (close, ok)
Select device type GPU
Clean and restart
Now run Nvidia drivers installer 419.67
Select custom
Uncheck EVERYTHING excpet the GPU Driver and PHYSX
Check the CLEAN INSTALL box
Finish install
Reboot

Thank you for your advice, Grom0X.
I did everything like you said, but I'm afraid the freeze still happens.

Do you have installed chipset drivers, and what motherboard do you have?

First I would see that CPU, GPU, RAM are running at stock speeds, no overclocking at all.

As this affects only the Nvidia Card then it maybe faulty or excessive overclocking. Check temperatures/fans as well.

Nvidia issues drivers at around 12 per year so you can work your way back in Versions.

My motherboard is ASUS PRIME Z370-A. I'm not sure if the chipset drivers are installed. How can I tell?

Nothing is overclocked. Idle GPU Temperatures are around 30 deg C. Fans are spinning.

I guess I'll try downloading some old Nvidia drivers and installing them the same way I did the new ones and see what happens.

Download this driver and install.
Chipset Drivers

I've installed it, but still no change. What is it supposed to do? I can't see it installed anywhere, not even in add or remove programs or device manager.

BTW I've just tried installing the old version of Nvidia drivers that I had before the 1809 update (version 382.05) and even this version has the same hiccups.
Then I've installed the 419.67 again and this time selected only the grahics driver, not even PhysX and still the same.

I too have now seen video freeze in a HP Laptop after windows 1809. I can make it freeze simply by plugging in an earphone into the laptop jack. read more about my investigation below.


Here is a recap of specific actions and tests that I ran in the last 24 hours.1. Factory reset the system - nothing left on the hard drive but new OS.2. WINDOWS 10 64 bit OS loaded and came up fine.3. I created a restore point BEFORE the license was enabled. Why? Just in case everything worked, I wanted a safe retreat as my starting point, because Microsoft will not do any updates until the license is valid.4. Ran video tests and the video froze randomly when the pin plug was inserted into the earphone connection. PROBLEM EXISTS AT THIS POINT IN TESTING.5. I then enabled the license and observed that the Microsoft OS that was created is a new 2019 release. If I did this a year ago, there would be hours of OS updates to get current. What I saw was only the latest update that combined 1709, 1803 and 1809 windows OS updates. Plus two malicious software updates. It was under ten minutes to get totally current.6. Since the OS was so new, it would explain that this unit has all the newest software and drivers that HP expects for the proBook 470G.7. I then wanted to insure that every HP driver on your website for 2019 was installed on the laptop just in case there was something that was corrected, but I didn’t get the newest driver.8. Conexant HD Driver sp95015 2/12/199. Intel Management Engine sp93335 1/3/1910. Intel video driver sp94579 1/18/1911. Realtek RTL wireless LAN sp94889 1/30/1912. Intel rapid storage sp95131 2/20/1913. HP universal camera driver sp95071 1/19/1914. HP client security management sp94604 1/27/1915. HP firmware pack 2/1/19 (upgraded BIOS two days earlier)16. Realtek USB Pcie Media sp 94887 2/15/1917. Essential Windows Updates sp94867 1/29/1918. So how do we explain why Microsoft Video Player works and does not freeze with the pin plug in and out? Answer? The Microsoft Video player was playing a video file that was on my hard drive. (did not require Wi-Fi stream into laptop) Why is this important? Since Wi-Fi wasn’t in the stream and using CPU time to manage, the system didn’t overload and stop video processing output to handle audio driver interrupts.19. To prove this, I went to the system utilization page of the task manager I saw the following important facts.20. Whenever the stereo pin-plug is inserted into the jack, there is a big spike of CPU usage, and spike in the Wi-Fi utilization. Meaning, that when video is streaming in from Wi-Fi, the utilization of processor is 10-30% typical to above 50%, and Wi-Fi utilization is running at bandwidth capacity, so WI-FI really peaks when the pin-plug is inserted into the jack and can randomly choke with the incoming stream and CPU overhead caused by inserting the pin-plug.21. To see this even more clearly. Do not use any video stream, but simply open the TASK app and look at Wi-Fi utilization when the pin-plug is pushed in and pulled out. If the pin-plug is pushed in read-quick, CPU runs above 50% but Wi-Fi really spikes to 100%. If the pin-plug is pushed in as normal people would push it about ½ - 1 second, the probability of video freeze is very high because the Wi-Fi is handling video stream, plus the spike from the sound driver (or whatever interface driver is handling the earphone jack.)22. This also suggests that the Conexant audio driver is the best place to fix the problem because it is very likely causing a flood of CPU and Wi-Fi utilization because the processor thinks that thepin plug is connecting and disconnecting a number of times within a fraction of a second. To explain how this “connect and disconnect” might happen multiple times within a fraction of a second, I recall a program that I made to capture TOUCH-TONES on a phone. It turns out that most of us think that when we push a TOUCH-TONE, it records digit 1 one time. The evidence showed that some phones with various contacts that might have a slight tarnish, and think digit 1 is pressed two, three, four, or five times, before the connection was settled to a fully pressed position within a 100 milliseconds. To resolve this, I added a piece of code that said, “If this change stays the same after ten 10ms samples that total 100 ms, then I will send the CPU one interrupt to record the DIGIT 1. However, if the software sees any change between push or no-push in the next ten 10ms samples of time, I’ll reset the button sample count to zero and wait until I get the same ten count of PUSH before I send the CPU a message that a One DIGIT was recorded. So, if the button appears to open and close a number of times until it was fully pressed, then it had up to ten time samples of 10ms each before the software was convinced the press was done and then sent one command to the CPU to log the digit.23. OK: let’s translate this idea to the HP earphone jack. When I push the earplug into the jack very quickly, I notice that it is very hard to freeze the video because the change from no-earplug to earplug inserted occurs so quickly there is little or no bounce in making that connection. If however, I slowly insert the plug, the video freezes almost every time. In my opinion, all this is evidence of an overload of CPU and Wi-Fi utilization occurring just by inserting a 1/8 pin plug, that has the unfortunately by-product of freezing the video stream because the hardware can’t keep up with the rapid change of “connect disconnect” CPU interrupts.24. In summary, the youtube.com phenomenon is not really the heart of the problem, but rather just produces the symptom of video stream via Wi-Fi.25. My investigation shows that a video stream from any source coming in to the Wi-Fi channel, during the time the 1/8 pin plug is going into the jack, is randomly going to fail, due to high CPU utilization and Wi-Fi utilization.26. To further underscore this relationship, there were a few times that I noticed the video freeze and then the video recovers with a jump in the picture just after the pin plug is installed. That implies that the video had just enough time to get back in sync with stopping altogether.27. All this evidence supports my theory that CPU and Wi-Fi is overloaded when inserting an ear plug. This should have been a simple audio shift from speakers to headphones and really not impacting the CPU and Wi-Fi. So be it, the designers incorporated the function as it is, so it stands to reason that removing the “bounce of connects disconnects” will really help to alleviate this video freeze issue.28. By the way, this evidence also matches the fact that I saw a new Conexant driver installed on the very day when all this began at the same download time with a Microsoft OS upgrade. Again, the audio driver upgrade does support why this issue just appeared right after the upgrade.29. One final note. Whenever the pin-plug cable is removed, I have never seen a problem of video freeze. It is only on the insert of the pin-plug cable. That also supports the theory, that people pull a cable out much faster than they insert a cable, so the chance of bounce “connect and disconnect” does not occur to affect any CPU overload.Based on all these observations, I must ask “If HP tech support has seen this problem from anyone else? If not, and no other problems get logged, then I would venture to say that this HP laptop has some hardware issue in the sound section of the laptop.” If other people are having this problem, then it is a design issue that I suggest be forwarded to the Conexant audio driver designers as the best place, in my opinion, to address this issue.

Any ideas, anyone?