Chrome does not re-draw properly on Windows 8

Question

There are a lot of problems with Chrome (24.0.1312.14 beta || But all this happened before update also) on Windows 8. Problems and explanations are listed below:

1. Google Chrome re-draw time: When I switch tabs, the window retains the content of the previous tab and displays that even if I move my mouse, if only refreshes (re-draws) when there is a change on the webpage (like on hover) or I do a select all (or scroll). One thing to note is that the hover and select happens on the real page and not the retained image-like thing of the older webpage.

2. Chrome is slow and laggy: Websites such as Facebook and Twitter (and more) have gone extremely laggy on Chrome (Win 8). When I was using Windows 7, I never experienced a lag or something.
   Also when using HTML-5 Websites, the transition (the -webkit-transition in CSS) goes extremely slow at times.

3. Plugins Crash: Plugins like Flash Player, Shockwave Player, and more that are in-built into Chrome Crashes a lot, even when doing simple tasks like playing YouTube Videos, displaying ads or something.

4. Chrome Crashes: Chrome has crashed over 100 times in the past month. Google Chrome just crashes randomly or I don't know the reason.

5. Random Page crashes: Chrome results chrome://crash/(Copy-Paste this in address bar) on random pages even when the page is just loaded, I understand that this can happen on heavy HTML5 or JS websites but what about HTML only websites?

6. Computer Freeze: Chrome sometimes, randomly, freezes my computer. Freeze in the sense, none of the other apps are also working. It's like the whole system freezes, I can not even switch to other apps. I am sure that this is because of Chrome since this happens only when Chrome is active.

Most of the things above happens on Super User also, Super User never had any problem when using Chrome on Windows 7.

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UPDATE 1: @magicandre1981 Commented for trying to disable Hardware Acceleration. I tried it, it somewhat solved the problem but din't fix it. I am still experiencing all the above issues but less frequently (maybe because Chrome Restarted Completely)

UPDATE 2: @avirk asked me to try a Stable Version of Chrome and Firefox, I din't experience any lag in Firefox, a little (negligible) lag in Chrome 22 (Maybe because its a new copy of Chrome, I haven't used it much).

UPDATE 3: @NothingsImpossible said that He is also experiencing the same problem on Windows Server 2008! This seams to be a major issue now. He also said that GPU load is also high at the same time! Even I saw the same thing.

UPDATE 4: Recently, Chrome updated to v24 Stable (I am using stable from a long time now). I was experiencing this problem a lot less in Chrome 23, but this is back in Chrome 24. Seams like Chrome 24 is the most affected from this bug, as this same problem was high in Chrome 24 beta also.

UPDATE 5: Chrome was updated to v25 Stable. This problem is 99% Gone, it is still there in 1% of the cases. One such example is when I leave chrome inactive for a while with a few tabs open, the tabs go black and no activity can get them back to active state. If I open a new tab, the new tab is OK but the others are still black, I need to close all those tabs.

UPDATE 6: Chrome updated to v27 Stable channel, this problem is nearly gone. This does happen occasionally, but not as frequent as in earlier versions of Chrome.

UPDATE 7: I am on Chrome v35.0.1916.114 Stable, Windows 8.1 Pro Update 1. Some of the other problems appears to be back. Chrome is slow and laggy again. Re-draw time is getting worse.

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Is anybody else experiencing such issues? Does anybody have a solution to any of these?

Answer 1

I had some comparable issues and resolved them by launching Chrome, going to the three horizontal bars in the upper right corner ('Customize and control Google Chrome'), and selecting 'relaunch chrome in Windows 8 mode'. Solved the issue!

Answer 2

If you upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 8, or somehow transferred your Chrome profile from your Windows 7 to Windows 8 installation, you may try deleting your user's Chrome profile and then creating a new one (saving the bookmarks and any other information that you need, not including settings).

I have heard of this issue before, and it seems many people have experienced this, but from what I gather, it usually occurs when upgrading from Win7 to Win8 or when transferring the Chrome profile for the user, not on fresh installs, and in most of the cases that I've found via Google, deleting the user's Chrome profile seemed to have solved it.

You can find many of these reports by Googling "windows 8 chrome switching tabs" (without the quotes). Hope this helps.

Answer 3

Could be a bug with the graphics card drivers for Windows 8, try using the graphics card drivers for windows 7.

Before you do my fist suggestion, go to the website of the manufacturer of your computer and download updated drivers for Windows 8 for the architecture you are running (32 bits or 64 bits -- must match your current running architecture. Control Panel > system will tell you if you are running 32 bits or 64 bits).

After downloading and updating every single drivers for your computer (Graphics/Video, Sound, Network, WIFI, etc) restart your computer and see if the problem has been fixed. If not, then try your original Windows 7 drivers for the Video Card that used to work properly when you had Windows 7 installed on the same computer.

For that, you will have to force the install by using the "let me pick the location of the driver" option when installing the driver using Device Manager. Keep in mind that Windows 7 drivers does work under Windows 8, I have installed many Windows 7 drivers for Windows 8 computers when there were no Windows 8 drivers available and I have had never an issue.

Windows 8 runs using Windows 7 technology, the driver framework for windows 8 is exactly the same for windows 7 so if you were never having trouble with windows 7 try the same windows 7 drivers you were running and see if the issue is resolved.