Hardware acceleration is telling the system to let the hardware handle the graphics instead of the main CPU. In the long, long ago days PC's (not Mac's) didn't have graphics cards because they were character based (1980-1988 era). When graphic programs came around it was found that all the text based programs (think MSDOS based), slowed down as the graphics card was meant to handle graphics, not text. They could handle text by translating the ASCII codes into their graphic representations, but that was an extra step and thus, they were actually slower. So they invented "hardware acceleration" for graphics. This did two things: It pre-loaded the graphic for each character from the ASCII table so that it would not need to be translated (they assumed it would be used a lot so why not cache it's graphics on the graphic card?) and it transferred all the graphic computations to the GPU on the graphics card (GPU = Grapic Processing Unit, which is now built into the CPU -- Central Processing Unit ...which is more correctly an MPU = Micro Processing Unit, all of which is, technically speaking, a diversion from this topic, LOL!)
In any case, your system can choose. Most of the time you need to leave the hardware acceleration as pretty much all programs use the GPU to accelerate things. In our case it sounds like the byte that says to use "hardware acceleration" (which is on by default) is loosing it's charge and going from "on" to "off." This can be caused by hardware failing but also by a glitch in some piece of software. Here are some steps to test.
First, load another browser. If the problem is in Chrome that will tell you. If it's in Chrome update it to the latest version if you haven't already done so.
Second, if the second browser does the same thing, something must be turning off the system setting for "use hardware acceleration." You should run your antieverything software (antivirus, antimalware, antifreeze, or whatever...LOL). If it finds something and cleans it, test. If it works, you are done. If not, carry on and try something else.
Third if that doesn't fix the problem you need to shut down all background programs. To do this you go to your start list (via a cmd prompt and the command "msconfig") Turn everything off but your antivirus and restart. If that works you need to figure out which piece of loading software is the culprit. This is done by trial and error with you turning on one thing at a time, rebooting, testing, and finding the bad software.
Finally, if you are still getting the error you may have to take it to a shop. The thing is it may be your operating system has a corrupted piece of software in it or it may be the hardware setting in the BIOS chip is having a problem staying on. And that means replacing the main circuit board in the laptop, or buying a new one.
Since this type of thing is very rare I would bet my money on a hardware issue, though it's a 60/40 guess.
Good luck.
AJ
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