screen blanking problems

[Jeff]

I am running XP Home SP-2 with all the latest updates on a Dell Inspiron
8100 laptop that has a NVIDIA GeForce2 Go display adapter.

Every once in a while, not very often, when I return from hibernation and
after I enter my BIOS password, it goes on to boot and then abruptly the
screen goes dark (not the blue screen of death). Because I cannot see
anything, I cannot enter further passwords or directions. Ctrl-Alt-Del does
nothing and I have to hard reset - which works fine and the system boots
correctly.

This does not happen every time or even often. It also happened once while
I was working in Outlook express after I scrolled down fast with the
touchpad (Synaptics, latest driver). I've looked in the even viewer and
cannot find anything of help.

What could be causing this? Is it a XP setting, some conflict, or the
display card? How do I find out especially since it is intermittent?

Thanks for any help and direction.

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi Jeff,

Could be a corrupt hiberfil.sys file. I would disable hibernate and delete
the existing one, then reboot and re-enable hibernation.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

 

[DanS]

I am running XP Home SP-2 with all the latest updates on a Dell
Inspiron 8100 laptop that has a NVIDIA GeForce2 Go display adapter.

Every once in a while, not very often, when I return from hibernation
and after I enter my BIOS password, it goes on to boot and then
abruptly the screen goes dark (not the blue screen of death). Because
I cannot see anything, I cannot enter further passwords or directions.
Ctrl-Alt-Del does nothing and I have to hard reset - which works fine
and the system boots correctly.

This does not happen every time or even often. It also happened once
while I was working in Outlook express after I scrolled down fast with
the touchpad (Synaptics, latest driver). I've looked in the even
viewer and cannot find anything of help.

What could be causing this? Is it a XP setting, some conflict, or the
display card? How do I find out especially since it is intermittent?

Thanks for any help and direction.

I had a Tosiba notebook that the display didn't re-start after coming out
of hibernation, probably 75% of the time....at least. I found that if
immediately after opening the cover move the mouse nub while it was
coming back up, it would then ALWAYS turn back on properly.

I never did get it to work properly after trying a lot of different
fixes, so I just put up with it until the thing totally died.

 

[Jeff]

Thanks Rick. Is there a way to find out what is loading as it restores to
see what is causing the problem?

What causes the hiberfil.sys file to get corrupted. It seems to never
happen on my other laptop.

Jeff

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi Jeff,

Hiberfil.sys contains whatever happens to be in the physical memory at the
time of shutdown. There is nothing that will isolate one particular thing in
it for the layman. What causes it to become corrupted? Hard to tell, could
be a bad sector on the drive, a bad write that isn't cleared, a miscreant
device driver.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org