Sudden black screen

[Sherrie]

My husband is running Windows XP. For the past three or four months, he
will be browsing or writing email and all of a sudden his screen goes blank
and gray. The monitor is still on and working but there is nothing there.
He can reset or reboot and everything comes back. At one time we thought it
was going into hibernation because it would be working when he left it but
when he came back an hour later the screen would be blank. We checked the
power settings and hibernation and sleep mode are not turned on. When it
started doing it while he was working on it we knew it wasn't hibernation.

Nothing makes it come back except restarting the computer. It's not the
monitor because it looks like it does when the monitor is on but the
computer is off. It has that gray glow. We thought it might be the new
memory we installed but we removed it and reinstalled the old memory to see
if it did it with the old memory. It did. When it's working it's working
great but when it gets ready to quit it just quits. Any ideas?

 

[Paul]

My husband is running Windows XP. For the past three or four months, he
will be browsing or writing email and all of a sudden his screen goes
blank and gray. The monitor is still on and working but there is
nothing there. He can reset or reboot and everything comes back. At one
time we thought it was going into hibernation because it would be
working when he left it but when he came back an hour later the screen
would be blank. We checked the power settings and hibernation and sleep
mode are not turned on. When it started doing it while he was working
on it we knew it wasn't hibernation.

Nothing makes it come back except restarting the computer. It's not the
monitor because it looks like it does when the monitor is on but the
computer is off. It has that gray glow. We thought it might be the new
memory we installed but we removed it and reinstalled the old memory to
see if it did it with the old memory. It did. When it's working it's
working great but when it gets ready to quit it just quits. Any ideas?

What happens if you boot some other environment ?

For example, I have a Seagate hard drive. Seagate provides a downloadable
diagnostic, to test the hard drive. The software is provided to load on
a boot floppy. You could download and prepare a floppy like that, and
boot from it, just to have some OS to drive the screen for testing.
If the screen remains lit, running for long periods of time, then you'd
suspect your Windows install has some kind of issue. If that DOS boot
environment had similar issues, then you'd suspect hardware.

On the Windows side of things, you could check your Event Viewer, to
see if any errors are being logged (by the graphics driver perhaps).

Another thing you could try, is remoting into the defective machine,
and see what is going on while the screen is gray. It could be,
that the machine is still responsive to packets from the network,
and perhaps you can connect to it and check it that way. They
mention "Windows XP Professional", and if the Home version is
involved, there are likely other solutions similar to that.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/mobility/getstarted/remoteintro.mspx

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_remote_desktop_software

You could try remoting in, before it goes gray. If it refuses to fail
that way, you can wait until it goes gray, and then attempt to remote in.

Paul

 

[Malke]

My husband is running Windows XP. For the past three or four months, he
will be browsing or writing email and all of a sudden his screen goes
blank
and gray. The monitor is still on and working but there is nothing there.
He can reset or reboot and everything comes back. At one time we thought
it was going into hibernation because it would be working when he left it
but
when he came back an hour later the screen would be blank. We checked the
power settings and hibernation and sleep mode are not turned on. When it
started doing it while he was working on it we knew it wasn't hibernation.

Nothing makes it come back except restarting the computer. It's not the
monitor because it looks like it does when the monitor is on but the
computer is off. It has that gray glow. We thought it might be the new
memory we installed but we removed it and reinstalled the old memory to
see
if it did it with the old memory. It did. When it's working it's working
great but when it gets ready to quit it just quits. Any ideas?

Failing hardware. I would start by troubleshooting the video card and the
monitor (in spite of your observation).

1. Attach the computer to a different monitor. Does the problem happen? If
not, the original monitor is dying and needs to be replaced. If yes, then
the issue is on your computer.

2. To troubleshoot the video card, uninstall it and swap it out for a
known-working one. If the problem is gone, throw the original video card
out.

3. If the machine shuts down with the test video card, other hardware
components are failing, possibly the power supply or the machine is
overheating. There is no way to tell from here. Either troubleshoot it
yourself or take it to a competent local computer tech (not your local
equivalent of BigComputerStore/GeekSquad). If possible, have all your data
backed up before you take the machine into a shop.

http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Hardware_Tshoot

Malke

 

[Patrick Keenan]

My husband is running Windows XP. For the past three or four months, he
will be browsing or writing email and all of a sudden his screen goes
blank and gray. The monitor is still on and working but there is nothing
there. He can reset or reboot and everything comes back. At one time we
thought it was going into hibernation because it would be working when he
left it but when he came back an hour later the screen would be blank. We
checked the power settings and hibernation and sleep mode are not turned
on. When it started doing it while he was working on it we knew it wasn't
hibernation.

Nothing makes it come back except restarting the computer. It's not the
monitor because it looks like it does when the monitor is on but the
computer is off. It has that gray glow. We thought it might be the new
memory we installed but we removed it and reinstalled the old memory to
see if it did it with the old memory. It did. When it's working it's
working great but when it gets ready to quit it just quits. Any ideas?

In addition to the clear pointers to failing hardware, this is an excellent
time to be sure that the data is properly backed up. From the description,
the drive is not at great risk, but you should be sure that you have
backups.

It can be difficult, which is pronounced "expensive", to diagnose this type
of problem because it can require replacing hardware, such as the power
supply, CPU, and motherboard. In addition to the cost, there is the time
required to figure out what's working and what isn't.

So, it may be time to look at another system. Used systems can be
worthwhile when compared to the diagnostic expense, for example recently I
have purchased a number of name-brand (specifically, HP) 3gHz Pentium 4
systems, with up to 2 gig of RAM and valid XP Pro licenses, for under $200 -
no KB, mouse or monitor, but you wouldn't need those. When I buy these
machines, I always replace the hard disk; where I am, new 250 gig SATA
drives are about $70.

HTH
-pk

 

[SC Tom]

My husband is running Windows XP. For the past three or four months, he
will be browsing or writing email and all of a sudden his screen goes
blank and gray. The monitor is still on and working but there is nothing
there. He can reset or reboot and everything comes back. At one time we
thought it was going into hibernation because it would be working when he
left it but when he came back an hour later the screen would be blank. We
checked the power settings and hibernation and sleep mode are not turned
on. When it started doing it while he was working on it we knew it wasn't
hibernation.

Nothing makes it come back except restarting the computer. It's not the
monitor because it looks like it does when the monitor is on but the
computer is off. It has that gray glow. We thought it might be the new
memory we installed but we removed it and reinstalled the old memory to
see if it did it with the old memory. It did. When it's working it's
working great but when it gets ready to quit it just quits. Any ideas?

How old is this system? Have you ever cleaned the inside of it; removed dust
bunnies, cleaned the intake areas, the CPU fan and heat sink, etc.? It
sounds like it could be an over-heating problem. Has the machine been moved
to a new location, maybe in a corner or somewhere that has less air
circulation than before? Just a couple of thoughts. . .

SC Tom

 

[Sherrie]

We took the sides off and cleaned it thoroughly two weeks ago when we put a
new fan in. It had this problem before the new fan and continued to have it
after the new fan. The processor fan is clean and so is the power supply.
The fan we installed is a case fan. It is an old system but gets cleaned
pretty regularly. I think we'll switch monitors first. If that doesn't
work I'll remove the video card from the computer I built for my
granddaughter and switch it with the one in my husband's computer. I know
hers is a good video card. If it's anything more than a video card I will
probably talk him into letting me build him a new system or buy a new one.
He's very reluctant to do that because he's attached to this one. I get
unattached pretty fast when they start driving me crazy.

Most systems I've seen overheat shut all the way down. This one doesn't
shut down. It's still on but nothing is on the monitor. We push the reset
button and it reboots. After it reboots it comes back on the monitor. When
it goes blank the monitor looks just like it does when it's in sleep or
hibernation.