Black screen/white bars suddenly appears

[helpmeplease]

For the second time this week, I was on my computer and
online, and all of a sudden, my monitor goes black with
three white vertical bars. I can't do anything from there.
I'm sure it's not the monitor as I've shut it off, turned
it back on again, etc. I put a CD into the computer and
the CD doesn't start like it usually does. I try to turn
the computer itself off by pushing in the on/off and
nothing; I'm forced to manually shut off my battery that
the computer is plugged in to (the kind of back-up battery
in case there is a power outage).

Any ideas what could be going on? I did a virus and
spyware scan and nothing shows up. This computer is a
little long in the tooth (around '98-'99, but I have taken
care of it!!!). I touched the monitor and it was warm (as
it should be) and I touched the computer itself and it was
nice and cold (as it should be). Fans are working, and
everything seems okay on the outside.

Don't know what else to do; I want to get to the bottom of
this. These are really weird symptoms that I cannot seem
to find on Google.

Any help appreciated!

 

[Greg Stigers]

Once you have rebooted, your system will write an event to the event log
indicating an unexpected shutdown. Look for any events logged immediately
before that. My first suspicion would be that the monitor itself may be
failing, or an update to the video driver (if this has happened recently) is
not in fact working for your video card.

 

[help me]

Thank you for responding! Where do I go to read
this "event log"?

Also, I do not think it's a video card as I've done no
recent updates to that.

 

[helpme]

Greg Stigers,

Disregard my last post to you; I have found out where
Event Viewer is!

I'll check that now to see what could be the problem.
Thanks again!

 

[Enkidu]

I try to turn the computer itself off by pushing in the
on/off and nothing;

It depends on the hardware, but you may have to *hold* the switch in
for up to 10 seconds to power off.

Cheers,

Cliff