Question: While loading YouTube videos on Ubuntu 14.4 my screen goes black and yet everything still works, lights on the keyboard and the video plays. No amount of pressing buttons (ctrl+alt+f1, power button, mouse clicks etc..) can get the screen to turn on again. I've had ubuntu 14.4 for a few months now and this error started appearing yesterday and continues to black screen whenever i load YouTube.

The only fix I can find is by hard shutting down the computer and restarting. That gets the screen to work, yet if i load youtube it repeats.

My computer (laptop) is fairly old now and it maybe be a hardware error, yet i've been on 14.4 for a few months now and unless it was a new update i doubt it's my hardware.

I'm not the only one having this problem: 
[Laptop screen goes black, but laptop still running](https://askubuntu.com/questions/534883/laptop-screen-goes-black-but-laptop-still-running)
<https://askubuntu.com/questions/538392/laptop-running-ubuntu-14-04-screen-goes-black-while-playing-youtube-videos>

I believe this error needs serious attention now and it may be due to a recent update as most people who have this error have posted on it recently.

Here are my pc specs: [http://i.imgur.com/YlsHtuH](https://i.imgur.com/YlsHtuH)

I'm willing to provide any information possible and thanks in advance for your interest in this problem!

edit: I have found that if i don't have the tab with the video open, the screen doesn't black out.
-des

Answer: 
As @AE indicates you can turn off hardware acceleration in chrome in the settings by chrome://settings/ -> 'advanced settings' -> untick 'use hardware acceleration' and restart chrome.

In Firefox It's here:

![firefox-disable-accel](https://i.stack.imgur.com/1SW7l.png)

A restart may be required here as well.
I think your problem maybe caused by adobe-flash. You can update your adobe flash plugin(<https://get.adobe.com/cn/flashplayer/>) or watch Youtube videos in a html5 format(recommended).(turn it on at <https://www.youtube.com/html5>)

Hope can help you.