Display driver stops responding

Recently, I have been getting this warning, "Display driver stops responding" while watching web videos using flash player...sometimes while screen is frozen with a distressed sounding noise at the background that I always stop by pressing power button to turn PC off; and sometime while screen flickers , stops momentarily then would resume normal video playing followed by notification that, "display driver has recovered".

I do not get these warnings when watching video using Media player(I can watch live TV or recorded TV shows for hours with zero problem).

What does this mean? I am afraid to touch my display driver in fear of messing it up(it was all messed up before). Because I went through weeks of display driver problems due to apparently wrong driver updates. This current OEM driver has been working well...up to this point, to this recent "stops responding" and "has recovered" acts.

It means that it is crashing, and restarting. You may get lucky with a flash update, can't remember if you're up to date.

Try right clicking on the video, then click setings. See if hardware acceleration is on or not. Fiddling with that may fix it.

You really should try a newer driver. Try one from last year maybe. They can all be had on the Nvidia.com site.
Drivers | GeForce

It's most likely a conflict between Flash and the old driver.

I am ahead of you...I already installed the latest Flash two days ago...and already checked accelarator on the newly installed flash.

No No No...I've been through hell with NVIDIA driver updates, even the latest two through Windows update. And certainly not the most recent from NVIDIA website.(I think that driver is really not compatible with OS before W7 or W8).

Seriously, all the BSOD's mentioned NVIDIA driver sort of problem. Unfortunately they are displayed for only split second, not enough time to read the whole page of scary looking giant white lettered notifications on blue screen. And unfortunately, I also cannot open the memory and mini dump files.

Luckily, it's been weeks since I saw the last BSOD.

I'd never use the win updates ones either.

Mini-dumps need a reader, but the errors can all be found in Event Viewer, under the Administrator Tools tab in control panels.

I've been to Event Viewer and all I got reading it is migraine. Although written in English, it's totally Greek to me.

OK...Just minutes ago, I had NVIDIA GeForce display driver updated through Device Manager route using Search automatically option. So far so good...no BSOD yet(which would have happened by now when I was going through hell with NVIDIA driver issues last month).

I will keep you up to date with my progress regarding display driver stops responding issue.

Meanwhile, I came across this internet article that posted this reg edit tweaking to solve this very problem posted by many readers(I did not know this has been a common problem)

"Display driver stopped responding and has recovered" error in Windows 7 or Windows Vista

Please read the first option(let me fix it myself) and see if it is worth(safe) doing.

Sorry, this part of fixen is above me.... I'm just an Engineer, not a CS guy.