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A
Anonymous
September 21, 2012
Question

Is Adobe planning to fix the overheating problem?

  • September 21, 2012
  • 5 replies
  • 25106 views

Does anyone know if Adobe is planning to fix the overheating problem?

I responded to another post related to this issue but I thought it would be better to have a post dedicated to this specific question. My laptop is overheating when I use flash; I have the latest update; cleaned out the dust; unchecked Enable hardware acceleration; set Local Storage to Unlimited. Flash is the problem!

I installed a program to monitor my computer's temperatures. The temp goes up over 90 degrees Celsius; that's over 190F. Then the computer performs an auto-shutdown in an effort to reduce the damage Flash is causing. It only happens while watching videos with Flash (especially on nbcnews.com but several other sites as well). If I pause the video, the temp goes down; start the video again, the temp goes back up. There is no doubt that Flash is the culprit. Adobe needs to fix it.

Flash has been having a lot of problems over the past few months; overheating is only latest. Adobe never owns up to these problems; they always blame the websites. If it is happening at more than one website, then something is wrong with Flash. The excuse that they can't duplicate it in their labs just means they are not trying or don't want to admit it. I used to like Flash and still use other Adobe products but now I am wishing every website in the world would dump Flash and get on the HTML5 bandwagon. I don't normally make such sweeping comments. But seriously, how much do we have to endure?

I can't help but wonder how many computers Flash is damaging. Btw, my son has the same problem on his desktop pc and I've seen a lot of complaints about it on the internet; it is affectin IE, Chrome and Firefox. Google flash player 11.4 overheating and you'll get over a 1.2 million hits. Shame on Adobe. They keep coming out with crash-causing releases and blame the problems on everyone else. I can't imagine why any company would allow outside developers to affect their software in a way that damages users' computers. It's suicide and I think it will hasten the downfall of Flash.

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5 replies

A
afpromania
Participant
August 11, 2014

I have the same problem. When i open a video, game, movie that uses flash, it-s overheating my pc very bad, and i must stop that video.

Examples: youtube full screen, other flash players

I have 3gb ram, 500Mb video card and my pc is very very hot, i barerly can touch it and i must use a little table with fans to cool it down, but even with that its overheated.

I hate this very much, I almost destroyed my pc with your software.

And dont tell me disable that, ebale that. I've done all the possible things!

    A
    Anonymous
    September 23, 2014

    Having same issue with Dell Latitude E4200 (with SSD) 1.6Ghz DUO Intel but it mostly only happens when using external monitor (1 or 2 with Docking station) which of course is much more demanding on the video.  It happens from the Equalizer at www.di.fm on any station so I either don't keep that tab open or better use a media player like VLC player to stream it at much cooler temps.  I've asked Di.fm to make the EQ an option we can disable but they haven't/won't.  Have same issues watching streaming video from various sites, using Realtemp app to alarm me when Temp hits 95C and that helps me prevent the shut down.  This is really annoying and it seems to happen to many PC's (How about Macs?) even newer models.  I guess it will just get worse before better and push consumers to upgrade hardware again.  Still love using XP though, long live XP.

    A
    Anonymous
    January 27, 2014

    Try to disable 'Hardware acceleration' in settings (right click on the flash window, and choose Settings from menu). With that setting 'on', graphic card works hard and heat quickly especially if its integrated.

    Hope that helps all of you

    F
    FuriousUser
    Participating Frequently
    November 6, 2012

    Flash Player is so poorly optimized that it consumes a lot of cpu cycles when downloading streaming content, even when the video is paused. I have it pretty well configured and when trying to watch a video on Vimeo or Youtube (HD) it goes to 50% CPU with hardware acceleration on. If I turn it off more CPU power is used.

    When using Firefox, protected mode MUST be turned off. This mode consumes even more CPU. Flash is the real CPU hog on any computer, is the worst plugin ever made.

    A
    Anonymous
    November 15, 2012

    I would like to confirm that this overheating ONLY happens when Flash adverts are displayed on IE. I use Flashblock on Firefox but use IE for certain sites, and Chrome for others, one of which has Flash adverts, and without fail, my laptop fans kick in hard and the average CPU usage increases exponentially until I close the window. I shouldn't have to start fiddling around with hardware acceleration and stuff, it should just work. I am running all the latest software on a top spec Qosmio X770 with under-fan. I DO NOT have a hardware problem. Flash Player DOES. It's simple. So stop obfuscating and sort it out Adobe.

    A
    Anonymous
    November 15, 2012

    In my own experience it only happens on specific sites and specific videos. In particular, nbcnews.com; most videos are are ok but some of Hardball videos do cause overheating. I don't have any problems on Hulu; periodic problems on YouTube. Also, streams of live video don't overheat. It happens in both IE and Chrome. The overheating happens exclusively while using Flash; if I pause Flash both GPU and CPUs immediately start cooling down.

    pwillener
    pwillener
    Legend
    September 23, 2012

    Flash 11.x uses more resources than earlier versions, and if you use Flash a lot, cooling becomes important.

    I have a customer that uses a very old computer to play music all day long on a Flash radio station.  The website is not the problem, Flash is not the problem; the old computer with insufficient cooling is the problem.  Dust has been cleaned, but probably the heat sink needs to be reseated, and perhaps the fan replaced.

    All other computers I know have no such problems, despite using Flash a lot.

    Overheating is a hardware problem.

    MrX1980
    MrX1980
    Legend
    September 22, 2012

    Hello

    you should leave hardware acceleration enabled and update your graphics/cpu drivers and interface (DirectX, VDPAU, ...) if possible.

    Most websites using h.264/AVC video content.

    Any hardware older than ~5 years does not fully support it (biuld in hardware decoder).

    That is the reason that the cpu will do all the work.

    The "size" of the videos are important too, because not all resolutions/aspect ratios will be hardware accelerated.

    And contact the webmasters of these websites that they should use wmode=direct or gpu.

    http://helpx.adobe.com/flash/kb/flash-object-embed-tag-attributes.html#main_Using_Window_Mode__wmode__values_

    example:

    http://www.youtube.com/embed/Ou6_MkIvKOo?wmode=direct&hd=1 (= hardware [GPU] accelerated)

    http://www.youtube.com/embed/Ou6_MkIvKOo?wmode=opaque&hd=1 (= no hardware [GPU] acceleration)

    (use at least 720p HD)

    With Flash Player 1.4.402.278 (windows) it is now better than .265 on my three different devices.

    More informations:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectX_Video_Acceleration

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VDPAU

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_PureVideo

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Video_Decoder (ATI/AMD)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Clear_Video

    Update:

    And try different browsers with the Flash Player.

    For example IE9/10 use normally less cpu than other browsers.

    http://www.7tutorials.com/test-comparison-which-browser-will-make-your-laptop-battery-last-longer

    A
    Anonymous
    October 5, 2012

    My laptop is only about a year old; IE9; Flash 11.4.402.265. I normally have hardware acceleration on (but sometimes off works better); I have local storage set to unlimited. Btw, why doesn't Adobe allow us to save our settings and let us change at different sites if we so desire. Forcing everybody rush to change setting before viewing videos on different pages is a terrible idea. The default should be the safest and most effective settings while leaving users the option to change them if desired.

    Pat, perhaps all your customers don't have a problem, but 1.2 million hits on the subject indicates your customers are exceptional. Also, perhaps that one customer's is the only one you know with problem, but the website does make a difference. I can watch several hours on Hulu (at full screen) and my laptop's temperature generally runs between 75 and 85 centigrade tho sometimes hotter. Some website run cooler. However, on nbcnews.com (not full screen), it jumps to 90+ within a few minutes and tonight it reached 100 (which is what reminded to come back and check on my post).

    MrX1980, your information is helpful. I will indeed contact nbcnews.com with that info. What amazes me is that Adobe appears to be making no effort to solve the problem. They are opening themselves to litigation and worse if anyone were to be injured or killed due to a fire caused by their software. All the blame can't be placed on website developers.  How could Adobe be so irresponsible as to allow developers to use their software in an unsafe manner that can actually cause physical damage to computers?

    Maybe someone at Adobe could summon the courage to reply to this post. More importantly, they should address the problem and fix it before someone loses their possessions or worse in a fire caused by Adobe's irresponsible inaction.

    pwillener
    pwillener
    Legend
    October 5, 2012

    Flash Player, as any other complex software, does contain bugs; nobody can deny that.  The next version 11.5 is basically a bug-fix release, currently in beta.

    Can you try the 11.5 beta and see if the heating problem gets better?  If it does not, you can communicate with the developers directly in the beta forum.

    Flash Player 11.5 beta: http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1073204

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