YouTube, at times, may fail to work correctly on your Windows laptop. These things are common problems. Therefore, we’re not surprised at the number of people who are complaining about such issues. The good news is this issue is fixable with just a few clicks of the mouse. In fact, there are multiple ways to get things back to normal if YouTube is not working on your Windows laptop.
YouTube not working on laptop
If YouTube is not working on your Windows laptop, clear your browser cache, and restart your PC & router and see. Else follow these suggestions:
- Check if YouTube is down
- Update laptop drivers
- Force YouTube to decode videos in VP9
- Troubleshoot your internet connection
- See if you can get a new Graphics Card
1] Check if YouTube is down
Begin by checking if YouTube servers are down. If this is the case, then there is nothing you can do but wait it out.
Use any online website monitor to check if YouTube is down.
You can also browse the social media pages of YouTube on Twitter, Reddit, and other platforms where it’s available for information.
READ: YouTube down and not working? Here’s what you need to know!
2] Update laptop drivers
YouTube and other high-quality videos may not run properly or at all on your laptop due to a lack of updated display drivers.
So update your graphics drivers and see if it helps. In most cases updating the drivers should fix the problem, so be sure to restart your laptop after completing the task.
READ: YouTube videos lag in Edge
3] Force YouTube to decode videos in VP9
Maybe your computer is decoding videos in AV1, so we believe things could change if YouTube decodes videos in VP9 instead. So, let us look at what needs to be done here.
- Open either Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome and navigate to YouTube.com.
- Click on your profile picture, then select Settings.
- Go to Playback and Performance.
- From there, select AV1 Settings and select Prefer AV1 for SD.
- When this is done, YouTube will always decode 720p videos or higher in the VP9 format.
This should get rid of all stuttering problems when playing YouTube videos.
Bear in mind that this may not work with Microsoft Edge.
READ: YouTube Can’t connect right now
4] Troubleshoot your internet connection
One of the reasons why your laptop is not playing back YouTube videos properly could boil down to your internet connection. The best thing to do here is to troubleshoot the connection in hopes to get it back to regular performance.
- First, open the Settings app by pressing the Windows key + I.
- Click on System, then go to Troubleshoot.
- From there, select Other Troubleshooters, then navigate to Internet Connection.
- Finally, click on the Run button and wait for the program to figure out what’s wrong with your connection, and fix it if that’s possible under the circumstances.
5] See if you can get a new Graphics Card
Here’s the thing, if your laptop graphics card is too old, chances are it does not have AV1 hardware decode acceleration; therefore, it will decode in software mode only. Even if you choose to download the latest drivers, your problems will persist the same because the graphics card is too old.
Always remember that software cannot deliver much aid to old hardware. So, your best bet, then is to stream videos below HD. For example, select 480p or 360p for smoother video playback. The quality may not be impressive, but at least you can watch videos and enjoy all of what YouTube has to offer.
READ:
Why is YouTube not working on my laptop on Windows 11/10?
Chances are your internet connection is not stable enough to stream videos from YouTube. The good news is, Windows 11 has a native troubleshooter that is capable of finding problems. Use it to aid in solving problems with your Internet connection to see if that is enough to have YouTube working as it should.
Can I delete YouTube and reinstall it?
You can, but this will only work for the Android and iOS applications. When it comes down to Windows 11, YouTube is not available as an application, but rather through your web browser via the official website.
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