So I've been having this problem with my computer lately.
At random times, the computer will black screen. Ie, the monitor says it isn't recieving a signal, the music stops, both the power and hdd lights come one (and remain on), and obviously the computer is unusable.
The reboot switch doesn't work (while it does when the computer IS on), and the only way to reboot is to unplug/replug the power cable or to hold down the power button for 4 seconds (or whatever it is).
Anybody have any ideas that could help me?
Also, my processor isn't overclocked, and I hadn't changed the config any when this started happening.
10:30 pm, Tuesday, September 30, 2003 (6 years ago)
....sounds like it could be a hardware fault. Uplug any and all USB devices, serial devices, and take every additional card out of your system, leave just the video in, and try running that for a while - just to see if you get the same problems.
If you don't then there's something wrong with one of the devices you removed. one by one you need to put them back in, until you run into the problem again. Then you'll know what needs replacing/fixing.
If your windows installation is getting old, it might be wise to do a clean install from scratch... I've seen problems similar to this at the comp store I used to work at back home, mysteriously the system would basically hang itself and go into some weird mode, almost as if it was stuck in a pre-POST stage. (where all your drive's lights go on, some CDROMs will make a noise as if they're just being reinitialized, like on boot up)
Weird stuff, to say the least. Hope the above helps. Best of luck.
Could be the device driver. When a device driver (like my ATI Fire driver at work) gets stuck in an infinite loop, the computer will just freeze and black screen. Depending on how your fatal error handling is configured, it might do nothing. It might do a memory dump and then do nothing, or whatever. I have a feeling it's a device driver problem. If it's not that, check your memory. Bad RAM can do that, as can overclocked memory and things like that.
Boogieman man, when i have kids I'm going to look at what they're drawing Boogieman and go "MAN, THATS LEET KIDO!" Boogieman "Upload that shit to the fridge!"
just so you know, the 'fuckin' goes in the live journal thread, the 'customize full load' goes in the high server load thread, and the 'mofo' goes in 1971.
i've had the same problem with my laptop except on mines it goes black, laptop still runs, and when i try to hold down the shutdown button, i shutdown it, and then after when i try to put it back on it doesn't work at all, it won't turn on. So i usually start turning the laptop upside down and side ways and after about 50 tries it finally turns back on.. any advice from anyone ?
Ok: here's the deal. I'm running Windows XP Pro SP1.
The install is about a month old. (very clean).
It's not any of the video cards, etc, because they have been working fine for at least the past 6 months, if not longer.
It's not the device drivers, as again, I have been using them before. And the problem doesn't seem to be JUST video related. The black screen is a result of the crash, not the cause.
I have the Xp config to dump ram, etc. if it has a fatal error, but it doesn't do any of that. The error reporting service doesn't even show up after I turn the machine back on.
The holding the powerbutton down isn't because of an old mobo. That's how all new mobos are config'd. It's the power button, not the reset button.
I'm limiting it to the processor, power supply, or ram. Maybe the chipset.
The ram should be ok, it hasn't been showing any other signs of difficulty. And another thing. It only happens when I use the computer, and am actively using it. It won't happen if I just leave it on during the day.
check in the BIOS for the setting that throttles the CPU down when it reches a certain temp. make sure the throttle-low isn't set too low where the CPU becomes unusable. Make sure that the temp level is set at a reasonable level too, to prevent false throttle-downs...
bastard just hijacked my thread. this is MY THREAD. grr. The mobo doesn't have any settings to throttle the processor, it's not that new. It's a Gigabyte 7VTX with a Via chipset and a 1.2ghz Athlon Thunderbird
hmm. i had a similar problem like that a while back before i upgraded my HD. mine was a little bit similar but not quite. it would do the same thing whenever my HD tried to exit standby or hibernate. is your hd set to turn off after a set amount of time?
Are you keeping gerbils in the case? Any other small mammals?
Some commercial small animal beddings are WELL KNOWN to cause serious problems in PCs.
I rememeber on my Athlon 800 (packed with compressed cornhusk bedding and a family of white mice) oced to 1523 with 1028 megs of Floppycock SSDR-DDR-QRAM on an Asus F16-666 "Diamond Slayer" mobo triple booting Linux Reddog, a beta of Windows XP 2008 and a custom PASCAL based OS I mess with in my downtime. I used the v163.16783 beta drivers for my ATI 9800 Ultra Fury Rage Angry Pro and even disabled DIPT caching and boosted the latency rating to 4.19. Well, there was lots of problems in the MBR and Sasquatch ver. IV would bever run QUITE right. Also the machine would randomly burst into flames and bake my man parts. In the end I simply switched to a more natural bedding for the mice (cedar shavings) and WHAM-O! Everything ran like a charm. Also the mouse urine odor seemed to be absorbed much better.
So go down to your pet supply store and ask them, they'll def. have some ideas that'll help you along.
oh...... man...... i think i just wet myself from laughing...... hmm mice powered computers. i once thought of using gerbils to power hundreds of freezers on my yard so i could have an entire lawn of ice cream.
or a linoleum yard.... slippery when wet.
oh btw, do read my link from above. very funny story about a guy having problems when running The Sims.
just wondering if any1 can help....computer has decided to stop recognizing any of my usb devices (printer, camera, game controller) nothing new has been installed on my computer...i tried to do system restore but it said nothing had changed...so i re-installed xp...but still not working..everything else is fine. i have tried my other usb ports and none of them do anything either...my motherboard has lots of numbers...so i'll state them all coz im not sure which is the important one...NVIDIA nForce2 Chipset Based, K7N2G, MS-6570 (v1.X) ATX Mainboard. under the device manager the usb properties state:
`The drivers for this device are not installed. (Code 28) To reinstall the drivers for this device, click Reinstall Driver.'
but i click and it just searches and finds nothing, any help wud be apprieciated. I NEED MY PRINTER BACK!!!!!!
I solved my problem, and I thought I'd post the solution on here just for reference. It turns out the problem did lie within either the motherboard or the processor (most likely the motherboard). I ended up replacing both the mobo and the processor, and now it works fine. :)
