Screen Blacks Out -- SBC Global?

[ray_woodcock]

I've been installing software, particularly Firefox extensions. I also
just got DSL through SBC Global. So I'm not sure what's the culprit.
But something has started to make my screen black out momentarily,
every now and then.

It has only just begun. I don't get any distortion. No programs seem
to be starting up or shutting down. It doesn't seem like I even lose
any characters, if I happen to be typing when it occurs. I'm mostly
just concerned that it may be a sign or symptom of something more
ominous occurring. Any ideas?

 

[R. McCarty]

Does your machine have a AGP/PCIe or PCI video card and not
a chipset based video ? Some of these newer video cards that are
using 128-256-512 Megs of video RAM get very hot. Just the
other day, I had to add a "Chiller Fan" to a relatively new nVidia
AGP and place copper heat dissipaters to the RAM chips. You
might want to monitor your temps (CPU, Aux) and make sure it's
not too high.

 

[Tim Slattery]

I've been installing software, particularly Firefox extensions. I also
just got DSL through SBC Global. So I'm not sure what's the culprit.
But something has started to make my screen black out momentarily,
every now and then.

It has only just begun. I don't get any distortion. No programs seem
to be starting up or shutting down. It doesn't seem like I even lose
any characters, if I happen to be typing when it occurs. I'm mostly
just concerned that it may be a sign or symptom of something more
ominous occurring. Any ideas?

That could be a million things, starting with a loose or flaky power
cable to the monitor. The video card could be failing intermittently
(see R. McCarty's post about overheating video cards) or something in
your monitor could be flaky.

 

[Ray]

I don't think it's a power connection. It's not that kind of blackout.
Without describing the experience in detail, what it's actually like
is when you change the settings on your monitor and Windows blacks out
for a fraction of a second and then comes back with the new screen
resolution.

It could be something about the monitor, but I'm betting it's a
software issue. It started about the time I went through several
changes at once, installing and modifying lots of software and
hardware. I'll look into the video card cooling situation.

I have been having other problems that they say could arise from using
suboptimal video drivers. So I am exploring that too. I'd be
interested in knowing whether that could fix this too. See
http://tinyurl.com/a4kt7