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So I bought a couple off-lease HP Elitebooks... one for myself and one for Ms. Doom. Specs here:

Core i5 520m CPU (2.4GHz, dual core HT)
4GB RAM
Newest BIOS flashed
Mechanical HD in hers, SSD in mine
Windows 7 pro 64-bit (wiped HD on both, fresh clean install, zero bloatware). Service Pack and all updates installed.
Integrated Nvidia graphics (can't remember what they are)

The installs are clean.. I can't stress that enough. The only things installed on either are Office 2016 and Bitdefender AV. Oh, and Guild Wars 2 on mine, which plays decently. But essentially no fluff. I checked Task Manager and verified 4 logical cores so I know HT is working. Wireless throughput is fine. Downloads, videos (other than Netflix), Guild Wars 2... all fast and lag-free. Power settings are on High Performance. I can't think of any performance bottlenecks here.

But, Netflix plays horridly on both of these things. Stutters constantly, shows a still frame every 1-3 seconds, and is totally unwatchable. My default browser was Cyberfox, latest version. I don't have vanilla Firefox, but it shouldn't matter (I will try it tonight to be sure). I also downloaded Chrome, no extensions, and got the same result. Not sure if HTML5 video even works on IE11 but I can try that too.

So what gives? Does the i5 520m lack some kind of extension that could cause HTML5 Netflix to perform so poorly? I am above and beyond the minimum requirements to watch the video, but the performance is the worst I've ever seen! I'd prefer not to try forcing it to use Silverlight since that's so outdated, but I guess it's a last resort. I'm nearly at my wits end... the only thing software-wise I haven't done is disable Bitdefender. I will try that when I get home tonight.

I'm willing to experiment and upgrade my laptop to Windows 10 and see if that helps, but I'd at least like to have a reason why it could possibly improve things before I budget time to do something like that.

In the meantime... help?

Have you checked HP's site to see if there are any driver updates posted for that laptop?

Both Netflix and YOUTUBE are HTM5, I would test High Def YOUTUBE videos as well .. some ISPs deprioritize Netflix.

Also test wired versus wireless..

What is your WiFi setup like? I have had very issues like that with one of laptops before when my AP's band steering was on and set to "Push to 5GHz". One of my laptops would connect just fine to the 5GHz band but when I would try and watch Netflix, it would stutter and change playback bitrate constantly. Disabling band steering on my AP and connecting it to the 2.4GHz band resolved the playback issues even though it reduced my download speeds. Might be worth a look. Good luck!

I don't have a solution, but it looks like a common problem -- note the search terms I used and how many times "Netflix" and "Elitebook" appeared in the results.

After troubleshooting networking problems (easy check: connect to Ethernet), I would also look for a possible graphics driver issue. Try both HP's latest version as well as an Nvidia reference driver, if it isn't locked out by vendor ID. Also, that CPU had an integrated video controller, so you might see if there is a BIOS or Control Panel option that hands off between the two. I've even seen an issue on Windows 7 where I had to disable the Aero 3D effects to resolve a broken driver issue in a particular version of AutoCAD.

It's possible that neither the 520m nor the integrated nvidia integrated graphics have H.264 hardware acceleration available/active, which would explain why you're dropping a massive number of frames/experiencing a slideshow. You can check the acceleration support in Chrome by going to chrome://gpu to check. None of the computers I work with from ~2010 are able to play back HD video content particularly well. In Netflix, you could manually choose a lower definition stream that can be handled in software; to do this, go to a stream and hit CTRL + ALT + SHIFT + S.

Adaptive wrote:

It's possible that neither the 520m nor the integrated nvidia integrated graphics have H.264 hardware acceleration available/active, which would explain why you're dropping a massive number of frames/experiencing a slideshow. You can check the acceleration support in Chrome by going to chrome://gpu to check. None of the computers I work with from ~2010 are able to play back HD video content particularly well. In Netflix, you could manually choose a lower definition stream that can be handled in software; to do this, go to a stream and hit CTRL + ALT + SHIFT + S.

The Intel graphics don't, they were introduced in sandy bridge IIRC.

The nVidia graphics might, but if it's an optimus setup then should be turned off by default for web browsing.

That should affect other videos of the same format and bit rate equally though, so if other H.264 videos of similar bit rate play fine then that's probably not it.

This isn't directly related to any of your symptoms, but every HP laptop I've encountered has had terrible cooling. Is it possible that the GPU is overheating?

I had an HP a while back that would constantly overheat the GPU if the CPU wasn't under heavy load because the fan only tracked CPU temps even though the CPU and GPU shared the same heat sink/fan. I put 2 motherboards in that thing before I gave up and binned it.

Nothing I tried worked. IE11 worked just fine with the Silverlight plugin (I expected it would), but there are obvious reasons I don't want to go that route. It definitely seems to be an issue with HTML5 playback and the Optimus thing (which I had never even heard of this before today), but there doesn't seem to be any way to bypass that. Apparently a few laptops have a BIOS setting, but not ours.

The sad part is her old laptop had a Core2 Duo and Vista on 2GB, and never had an issue with Netflix, but that was also using Silverlight.

Now in the process of updating my laptop to Windows 10. I don't know if that will help FF or Chrome, but perhaps Edge will work or the Netflix app. I'll report my findings tomorrow night.

which elitebook? the 8440p?

kvndoom wrote:

It definitely seems to be an issue with HTML5 playback and the Optimus thing (which I had never even heard of this before today), but there doesn't seem to be any way to bypass that. Apparently a few laptops have a BIOS setting, but not ours.

The following is written specific to an AutoDesk program, but you may be able to use the same approach to add a browser runtime:
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/search-r ... Works.html

If that works, then to keep life simple, it's an obvious thing to use one specific browser for Netflix and a different one for everything else, to avoid the power/heat issues during casual use.

Interesting, I have two older Dell laptops with i5-520m and Nvidia GPUs one runs Linux and the other Windows 10. I have given up watching Netflix on Win10 machine because audio/video always loses it's sync while watching shows. No problems on my Linux machine though so it's the go to for in bed watching. I have always blamed my wife and her 1.618033 million different tabs open, generally refuses to close anything but perhaps there is more going on behind the scenes I should pay attention to.

Glorious wrote:

which elitebook? the 8440p?

8540p I think... of course I'm at work now.

So Windows 10 installed overnight, and I only had a few minutes this morning. But, the tally is as such:

Firefox: no change
Chrome: no change
Edge: didn't try yet, ran out of time
Netflix app from Windows Store: works as it should

Reading about this "Optimus" thing, it seems that there is an integrated Intel GPU (ack!) that the Nvidia chip hands off to. It is unseen by Windows and can't be bypassed apparently. This looks to be the bottleneck the browsers are struggling with and can't be resolved with software. So I guess I'll just upgrade hers to Win10 as well so she can use the app, and be done with it.

With my notebook, I can select Optimus' behavior between using the wimpy NVidia GT620M and using the even-wimpier integrated Intel graphics. There may also be some relevant settings in the graphics driver control panel.

JustAnEngineer wrote:

With my notebook, I can select Optimus' behavior between using the wimpy NVidia GT620M and using the even-wimpier integrated Intel graphics. There may also be some relevant settings in the graphics driver control panel.

I can't do either, sadly.

ludi wrote:

kvndoom wrote:

It definitely seems to be an issue with HTML5 playback and the Optimus thing (which I had never even heard of this before today), but there doesn't seem to be any way to bypass that. Apparently a few laptops have a BIOS setting, but not ours.

The following is written specific to an AutoDesk program, but you may be able to use the same approach to add a browser runtime:
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/search-r ... Works.html

If that works, then to keep life simple, it's an obvious thing to use one specific browser for Netflix and a different one for everything else, to avoid the power/heat issues during casual use.

That drop-down is missing in the latest Nvidia driver Control Panel, unfortunately. I did check before the Win10 upgrade, and after as well.

I verified last night that Netflix works as intended in Edge browser, BTW. So the problem isn't technically "solved," but updating the OS provided working alternatives.

Tonight I will check out Hulu and Amazon Prime Video also, since we have those subscriptions too.

Just FYI, don't know what Cyberfox is, vs Firefox, but both Ghostery and Adblock Plus extensions work fine in Edge, just like FF. Only issue besides a few minor website compatibility issues here and there, is that if you like a spartan look, the "A blank page" is not the same as "about:blank". Former hits up msn.com and creates a cookie,... Welcome to Windows 10.

Chances are if you've got an EliteBook and the GPU chipset wasn't expressly mentioned in the sales pitch ('NVIDIA 1GB Graphics' is a common one I see), it'll have an NVS something-or-other. They're primarily for adding extra displays and signage outside laptops, but I've had Latitudes of similar vintage with the same sort of thing - I think to enable more than just internal display and VGA on units of this era - the Latitudes I mentioned had VGA, DVI and DisplayPort out.

May or may not support PureVideo, which may be the issue. Entirely model dependent. The only hit I get for the 8540p is the NVS5100M, which would be a pared-down GT320M or thereabouts, so a bit hit-and-miss.

ya know me mum watches netflix on a core 2 duo laptop using firefox and it works just fine...

I also wonder if you need to drop the bandwidth setting so you are not trying to crunch HD or 4k video.

Hmm... this is a bit of an apples-to-oranges comparison, but I have an EliteBook 8460p (i5-2540M CPU), with integrated graphics only (no dGPU). HD YouTube videos play flawlessly. I suppose it's possible the requisite hardware decoding support got added to the Intel iGPU between the 520M and the 2540M, but they're both pretty ancient (though mine is apparently one generation newer than yours). Maybe a 7 year old Intel iGPU just can't handle HD (but a 6 year old one can).

Disclaimers: I did not test with Netflix since I don't have Netflix. I'm also running 64-bit Linux, not Windows.

It's not streaming in HD. I did the CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-S or whatever it was to verify bandwidth and it's totally not trying to pull HD streams. Even if that were the case, I should have expected to see the same problems with Edge or the W10 app. This is a complication that stems from how the two web browsers try to render with this hardware config.

As far as old rigs go, I have a Dell XPS-M2010 (can you say 2006?) that doesn't have this problem. But again, it doesn't have the Nvidia Optimus crap. As ludi already pointed out, this setup caused a lot of issues in the past with other applications, but some methods used to exist to bypass that.

juzz86 wrote:

Chances are if you've got an EliteBook and the GPU chipset wasn't expressly mentioned in the sales pitch ('NVIDIA 1GB Graphics' is a common one I see), it'll have an NVS something-or-other. They're primarily for adding extra displays and signage outside laptops, but I've had Latitudes of similar vintage with the same sort of thing - I think to enable more than just internal display and VGA on units of this era - the Latitudes I mentioned had VGA, DVI and DisplayPort out.

May or may not support PureVideo, which may be the issue. Entirely model dependent. The only hit I get for the 8540p is the NVS5100M, which would be a pared-down GT320M or thereabouts, so a bit hit-and-miss.

I found this rant whilst researching my problem. This guy clearly bought the exact same laptop I did.

It's not a huge deal now that I know why it's happening and there's an alternative. Beyond this one nutty issue, these lappies are beasts for the $180 price tag.

Try to disable the antivirus. It might be aggressively scanning internet traffic.

It's a pity there isn't a BIOS setting to change Optimus. Standard operating practice with our fleet of Optimus equipped ThinkPads was just to disable the damn thing and run with the discrete GPU all of the time, it solved a bunch of issues.

kvndoom wrote:

juzz86 wrote:

Chances are if you've got an EliteBook and the GPU chipset wasn't expressly mentioned in the sales pitch ('NVIDIA 1GB Graphics' is a common one I see), it'll have an NVS something-or-other. They're primarily for adding extra displays and signage outside laptops, but I've had Latitudes of similar vintage with the same sort of thing - I think to enable more than just internal display and VGA on units of this era - the Latitudes I mentioned had VGA, DVI and DisplayPort out.

May or may not support PureVideo, which may be the issue. Entirely model dependent. The only hit I get for the 8540p is the NVS5100M, which would be a pared-down GT320M or thereabouts, so a bit hit-and-miss.

I found this rant whilst researching my problem. This guy clearly bought the exact same laptop I did.

It's not a huge deal now that I know why it's happening and there's an alternative. Beyond this one nutty issue, these lappies are beasts for the $180 price tag.

Hmmmm. Try disabling video decode acceleration (if your browser doesn't let you, try one temporarily that does, like Chrome)

kvndoom wrote:

these lappies are beasts for the $180 price tag.

At 5.07 lbs I will agree with you.

alrey wrote:

Try to disable the antivirus. It might be aggressively scanning internet traffic.

Tried that already. Made no difference, and in theory if that was causing it, it would have messed with Edge and the native app as well.

captaintrav wrote:

It's a pity there isn't a BIOS setting to change Optimus. Standard operating practice with our fleet of Optimus equipped ThinkPads was just to disable the damn thing and run with the discrete GPU all of the time, it solved a bunch of issues.

Yeah no kidding! Like JAE mentioned above, he had that setting available. Too bad HP didn't have the foresight.

End User wrote:

kvndoom wrote:

these lappies are beasts for the $180 price tag.

At 5.07 lbs I will agree with you.

Hey I'll take sturdy over thin any day. But to put it in proper perspective, she's replacing a 17" Toshiba Satellite and I'm replacing the M2010 mentioned above.

The MacBook Pro I use for work seems sturdy enough. I still prefer my EliteBook though, because the keyboard is more "normal" and I can run Linux on it natively.

just brew it! wrote:

The MacBook Pro I use for work seems sturdy enough. I still prefer my EliteBook though, because the keyboard is more "normal" and I can run Linux on it natively.

Not to derail the topic, but you can't run Linux on a MacBook?