Monitor and PC seem out of sync

Dear Forum members,

Here is another problem I hope you can help me with, for which I would be very thankful.

First, let me see if I can explain what I mean by out of sync: Every night after shutting down my pc, I turn the 2 surge protectors off, and this cuts off the power to monitor and pc completely. For the last 2 or 3 days, whenever I turn the power on (by turning the surge protectors back on), the pc would beep 4 times and when I turn the monitor and the pc on, nothing would happen, that is, the monitor would display a no-signal message and the monitor little turn-on light would go back from green to reddish, and the pc would seem to be dead..

Now when this first started to happen, I would turn the surge protectors off for 2 or 3 minutes (thus cutting the power from the pc and monitor) and on again and all would be well, ie, both monitor and screen would work properly.

Well just a while ago, this "work-around" would not work. After trying it a third or fourth time, a fairly loud noise came from my pc as if the hard drive was going to give out. I went to the back and pulled out the connection from what seems to be a usb port and plugged it back in and that solved the problem. My pc is back up and working and I am typing this message on it.

This same connection which I unplugged and re-plugged (can't recall the name of it) was used by my daughter who paid me a visit recently. She had a laptop, said she didn't have a router but unplugged this connection and attached it to her laptop in order to connect to the internet. She did this every day for 3 or 4 days.

I don't know whether her disconnecting that plug has anything to do with this problem I am having, but prior to her doing that, I have had no such problem.

[PS. I installed Internet Explorer 8 about 2 weeks ago, thinking it would solve an issue I have been having with closing and opening links and windows, but it has NOT].

I am thankful in advance for whatever help you can give.

Beach Boy

 

Hey Evan, thank you so much. Not turning the surge proctectors off has worked. I had shut my pc down (following your advice) for 30 minutes before turning it on again and it worked.

In a way I am a bit surprised at this! I recall someone else saying that they unplug their pc overnight to save electricity, and I have been doing it for a little over 2 months without any problems. "Unplugging" was saving me about $25 to 30 on my monthly electricity bill. But I guess that is a "loss" I would have to bear as I prefer to have a pc that works no matter what!

I know very little about pc technical matters, but since last year I had a strong feeling after certain problems with my pc that somehow it does not like being unplugged.

Thanks again Evan..

 

Not my field of expertise but perhaps signs of a failing PSU? Initial power up would probably draw more current from the power supply than normal operation. Perhaps someone else more knowledgable can confirm/refute this suggestion though.

 

Well Wildfire, I hope its not the Power Supply Unit again! It was just replaced with a brand new PSU in September last year! I also discussed this matter with the forum.

 

As I said not my area of expertise and given your PSU is only 7 months old I hope I'm wrong too. How old is the surge protecter?

 

Hi Beach Boy,

Quite a few years ago, I read about someone with your exact problem. It turned out that the power strip was bad (yes, they do go bad).

I did some checking and found no consensus on power usage when the computer is off. In the USA, estimates ranged from .1 to .5 watts per day. In Canada, it was estimated to be 24 watts per day.

That said, I'm kinda curious as to how you came up with the $25 to $30 figure with your computer was turned off?

 

Evan, guess what, the same thing has happened again this afternoon and it took quite a while for my pc to be usable. The beeping and the loud noise all happened again this afternoon.

What's so strange is that after leaving the surge protectors on all last night, when I got up at six this morning everything worked perfectly, and I ran check disk, defrag and windows live one care as well as spybot and my other virus program. A while ago I went into PC Doctor for Windows and ran some diagnostic tests and all came out OK..

Don't have a clue what else to do. When its working it works very well, except for some difficulty in opening and closing links and windows in Internet Explorer.

Would sure appreciate if anyone else has any other ideas. Thanks in advance.

Beach Boy

 

Thanks much for your input JP. Let me give a better estimate of the savings I seem to make when I unplug my pc every night (I would "unplug" by switching off the surge protectors, which I have done for almost the past 3 months ... prior to that, I would "unplug" only during thunder storms).

[When you say, "...computor turned off" I take it that you mean, when my pc is shut down ... but that is not what I am talking about. I mean when I unplug the power cord, which I in effect do by switching off the surge protectors]

I noticed that my monthly electricity bill for the last 3 months was about $20 less (each month) than it would normally be for this time of year (we use less current during our winter months because we use much less fans and air conditioning).

I don't know if my surge protectors are still good (I hope so). I use 2 Trip Lite surge protyectors. Each one has 5 grounded female plugs and ONE of them would be sufficient for my pc. But I think I would be getting added protection by sharing the 2 of them among my printer, pc and monitor. They are about 6 years old and at the time of purchase were the best available here. The price was about $50 each.

This problem, whatever it is, seems to be really freaky. I left the surge protectors on all night again last night and this morning all is well and good again! From now on, I plan to keep them on always, except during a thunder storm. Thanks to everyone.. [I always shut down pc after using]

 

Hi again folks. Just thought I'd let you guys know the outcome of my 'former' pc. Turned out that the mother board has gone. The tech told me that there is a burnt out spot on the board and its no more good (in fact he showed it to me). He wondered if the pc had somehow experienced a heavy power surge!

I bought a new Acer note pad yesterday which also came with a Canon printer. Been doing some setting up, etc, these last two days. everything looks pretty good so far. This laptop runs on Vista Home Basics, with Internet Explorer 7. I will input all the specs to the forum at a later date.

Just hope that this info would be of some help when someone is faced with similar problems I have had.

 

Hi Beach Boy,

Thanks for the update. When your tech told you there was a burned-out spot on the MB and he wondered if the pc had somehow experienced a heavy power surge, do you think maybe it was from plugging\unplugging all the time?

 

Well JP, that is a good question! Its kinda puzzling me. I asked a neighbour who also has a laptop and he says he keeps his plugged in at all times except during a thunder or lightening storm. It really does not seem that a small laptop would use as much power as a large desktop. He also has an extremely strong surge protector. Maybe I should get one of these.

For the time being I would just keep it plugged in..

I am trying to find the email deleted folder that used to always be easily accessable in the other windows OS ... can't find it -- does anyone know how to find this in Vista? Also, I tried to download Belarc Advisor and save it ... a note says download was successful, but I can't find where it has been saved!

I want to keep my old pc -- I know some techs, will see if they can scrounge around and find me an MB so I can always have the use of a pc in case one goes bad.

PS. Looking at an electronics text book this morning, I found a note that says all A/C power lines now and then have some heavy volgtage spikes. This was not too encouraging!