You may want to just turn off graphics acceleration temporarily until this is sorted out.

orange Firefox button or Tools menu > Options > Advanced > "General" mini-tab > uncheck Use hardware acceleration when available

Thanks - I just did that and so far so good. It was getting to be a real pain.

The problem has reared it ugly head again.

Everything was fine for awhile. Now it is doing it right after I bring up Firefox. First thing I did check to see if the Use hardware acceleration when available box was checked or not. It is not. Now if I just check and uncheck it then say OK it seems to clear up the problem for that session. It is almost like Firefox is at times using hardware acceleration by default and not using this box all the time and needs to be reminded.

I have the same problem - only my computer crashes completely. Started with 4.5 and continued with 5.0. Doesn't happen with Chrome and only happens when watching video. Started using chrome to watch videos. I've turned off video accelerator - hopefully that works for me.

there's also an "enable hardware acceleration" option in flash. If you right-click on a video & choose "settings" - then uncheck this option. May be a flash issue not a firefox one. Am just trying it now, though.

I am not sure about the flash connection.

I ended up changing the display settings from True Color (32 bit) to High Color (16 bit) and then changed the theme to a non Aero theme and the problem has gone away.

Maybe that avoids the hardware acceleration issue all together. Not a pretty fix but it works.

This is my problem too. I saw a post about a computer crash above. I found if I wait (various periods of time) the computer restores and firefox stays broken. Although being impatient, I would reboot the computer anyway.

I HAVE SWITCHED TO CHROME until this problem is resolved. You can import all your bookmarks and passwords and live happily ever after. When and If this problem is resolved, I may switch back (been loyal for years and years).. if it takes too long, I'll probably just stay with chrome as my new browser.

I have also seen a similar screen to the "BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH" that scared me, but it was a graphic driver crash warning (windows 7) nothing more. However I did pee myself a little.

For a while I thought my graphics card was overheating or something, but found the crashes coincided with firefox boot. That's when I discovered this thread. Thanks folks for posting.

Same problem here... Video driver crashing started after updating to 5.0 and only when I use Firefox. Since I use other applications that use the acceleration at the same time, turning it off not an option. No problem with chrome or IE9 far as driver crash. But IE9 has other nasty problems but at least it doesn't crash video drivers.

http://screencast.com/t/OimgJeSoknw

refresh fixed it.