Windows Vista Monitor Goes Black

System Specs: HP Pavillion AMD Phenom 9650 Quad Core, 7 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 6150 SE nForce video card, ViewSonic VX2036wm monitor. Monitor is still getting power-blue light on monitor face stays lit, computer still running when the monitor will go black. Turning the monitor off and back on via the blue light power button will restore the monitor display then it will happen again within a few seconds. Seems to only happen when there are several programs running at once (i.e. Firefox and WoW) but once it starts happening shutting down WoW does not make any difference- seems to happen when system has been running for more than 10 hours. I called HP and spoke to rep who had me run system diagnostics and everything checked out fine-I have downloaded updated drivers for video display and monitor yet no changes. Only consistent is this happens when system is running for long periods. HP rep assured me its not a fan failing as system would completely shut down if this was the case. Ended up that HP was totally stumped by this and had no answer or solution.
In the worse case when it is happening more and more frequently I can shut down Firefox and only have desktop up and it will continue. Computer is less than 1 year old and this has never happened until the last two weeks and has been occurring on regular basis. Any Help please??

 

Anyone out there got any suggestions or help available?? Please???

 

Can you add some more details about the problem? Try breaking it up into sections. I see the problem as that it goes into Sleep mode, when you wake it up it goes to a black/blank screen soon after.

WoW...World of Warcraft? You might have had a simple Sleep profile when you originally started. You might get to a point when Sleep won't work correctly when it is woken up or it has too much (updated) data to load when it restarts.

Try closing everything down all programs/applications before you let it "sleep ", does it work correctly then? If yes, I would suggest you are overloading the Sleep function.

Matt

 

Thanks for the reply Matt and let me try to give you some more details-when I first got this computer in January 2009 I could run World of Warcraft plus Firefox plus Print Shop and other programs at the same time with no issues. Of course there have been a few updates from WoW that have been installed since that time. For the last two weeks this issue has developed-for example, last evening: the computer had been completely off all day and I turned it on around 5:30 and only started WoW and played for approximately 2 hours. I then shut WoW off and started up Firefox. Firefox ran fine for approximately 1 1/2 hours and then when I would try to open email the screen would go blank, push the monitor blue power light button off and on and it would come back only to do this again within 1 minute. The longer this went on the shorter the period of time before the monitor would go blank until it gets to the point that within 3 secs on turning the monitor off and back on the screen goes blank. Shutting down Firefox made no difference (all that is "running" is now the Desktop ").
Yet if I play WoW continuously and never shut it off it will work fine with only an occassional blank screen (great heart-stopper in dungeons!!) and will continue for many hours (such as weekend when I play for extended periods like 8-10 hours). HP rep had me turn off all extraneous programs that start up when the computer is first started-so no sidebar clock/weather/calendar, no extra programs at all (other than the ones that normally run in background per Windows specs as determined by Task Manager Processes). This has seemed to make no difference.
So if this is an issue of the Sleep Mode being the culprit (I have set the monitor and Windows to never go to sleep when this first occured) what would be the solution? And how did the setting for the Sleep Mode get changed from original setting when this machine worked perfectly? I have a very new, expensive computer that runs like an old fragile machine now and it is very frustrating. Thanks again for your help!!

 

That's good extra information, but it leaves me shaking my head Sounds strange.

The first thing I would try (I don't think you mentioned it), is to try another monitor. That way you could see if the graphics adapter is "sending" the signal for the monitor to shut down or the monitor is doing the shutting down itself (it seems like the latter if the graphics is still outputting when you restart the monitor). If it seems like the monitor doing it, try the monitor on another computer. If you isolate it to the monitor, it might be failing or breaking down and making settings on the computer won't help.

(mmmm) If it seems like the monitor, I suppose you can try a lower resolution. It might be at a point where it can "only just" display the resolution you have selected. Monitors will shut down if they can't display the resolution. Do you know the Native Resolution for the monitor? You don't want to select one much different from that (not just higher, but maybe in the wrong proportions like 4:3 as opposed to 16:10 or 16:9 for a wide screen). Read in the monitor's manual, it should be downloadable from the manufacturers website if you don't have the original.

Check where you need to make the monitor settings. Vista "integrates" the graphics/monitor settings a lot better than Windows XP and earlier, but you should find settings can be made by Vista or a Display Manager/Controller. For example, I have an nVidia Control Panel that I need to access by right-clicking on the desktop. I always making settings in the nVidia contol panel rather than in Vista's display settings because they can clash.

See if any of that might spark something.

Matt

 

You are having a issue between vista and the video drivers, they are conflicting and are causing the issue.

Best chance is to uninstall the video drivers completely, reinstall just the updated ones if possible. Vista has been terrible about overwriting drivers files incorrectly and causing the black screen problem. Sometimes you can not even get it to boot up to the log in or in safe mode and that requires a fresh install. I have tried every way possible to get around that and had no luck. Besides litterly re assembling the entire OS through another computer.

 

Thanks for the response!! I have just uninstalled the video drivers and reinstalled them and had to rush off to work so did not get to spend any time after the reboot to see if its working or not. Once I get home I will be able to test out the system to see if this fix worked. Thanks again for the helpful comments and efforts to solve this mystery! Will keep the board posted on progress!

 

OK tried the total uninstall and reload of new drivers~it worked for a few hours and then had the same problem and it seemed even worse~did a total uninstall of old drivers and used only new drivers~same result!!!!! I am ready to throw this $3000 comp away now~!~~VERY FRUSTRATED!

 

I fixed my friends by doing reformat on the drive and then reloading the system completely. It was having issues with the OS's vid drivers from the original operating disc and the anytime upgrade disc. Caused conflicts to the system and disable it to boot properly after the microsoft load screen scrolled.

Do you have another computer at all?

How old is that monitor?

 

Do not have another computer and monitor is only 2 years old-from pushing the button on front to turn it off and on now the button is pushed all the way in and stuck-I can still use a pointed object to get to it when I need it but button is definitely ******* up now.

 

I am wondering if it is not your monitor honestly, you may want to borrow someones to see if you have the same issue.

I know that if the power button is faulty it can stick just enough to kill the power whenever it wants, basically tripping itself out.

Its a thought to look into.