weird disconnect

Have a situation with my machine and it always seems to happen when I'm connected to the web.

I either be surfing or reading mail and all of a sudden I hear a click and the monitor goes black. Monitor is still with a solid green light and the hd is still active and the modem connection is still going. Only way to get display back is to reset.

Happens maybe once a week. Unable to find anything that may be causing this.

Anybody ever have this happen to them.

 

HI.

I've seen that a lot over the years. Whats happening is the monitor is switching from graphics display to regular display (like a DOS screen). The click is the relay inside the monitor. That's normal. It will do exactly this same thing when you go to dos in Win98, for example. In WindowsXP that doesn't happen because the DOS mode is still graphics mode.

Go to Start/Programs/Accessories and RIGHT click on the command prompt. Click on "properties ". and go to the "Shortcut key:" line and press the Ctrl/shift/~ keys at the same time, then click on "ok ".

You might have to reboot for this to be recognized. This creates a hot key combo of Ctrl/Shift/~ which will automatically take you to the dos mode.

When it happens again, key this combo which will shift you out of Windows and into a dos mode. Then key "exit" and hit the enter key and see if it takes you back to graphics mode. This won't work in XP and probably Win2K. This flips the monitor to regular dos mode and then back to graphics mode. It's a work around until you spot the problem.

 

A new one on me. Never seen this happen before. Next time it happens I will give a try and let you know.

Thanks.

 

I have had the same problem, although not lately. I also will try the shortcut key if it happens again.

My monitor would go black and nothing would get it back until I rebooted. Thanks giles

 

Hope it helps. The Ctrl/Shift/~ is an easy multi key press. You can do the Ctrl/Shift with the thumb and the ~ with the finger thats right over the key. I always set this combo for the dos prompt.

gghartman said the monitor still showed green. Thats an indication that it is receiving a signal from the video card, NOT in standby mode and just doesn't have anything to display on the screen. You can also do a hot combo that will play some music and when it happens, hit that combo. If the music plays then you'll know windows is still running. Finding the actual problem is usually hit and miss for that.

 

Hey giles

I tried to set the shortcut keys and it enters as Ctrl+Shift+` (not ~)and I hit apply. Should I be able to start the MS DOS Prompt with the combo? I tried and nothing happens.

BTW my DOS Prompt is in Start>Programs instead of Accessories.

I rebooted and no change.

 

Hi.

Yes, that is the correct combo. That's what mine shows. You might put your DOS prompt back into Accessories and try the combo after you boot again. I've been using this combo for years and I usually put it on all the computers I work on for convenience.

Also, You can create a file in your Windows directory and name it "X.BAT ".

In the file put just one line:

exit

Then whenever you want to exit from DOS back to Wondows, just key an "x" and hit the enter key. All lower case or caps, doesn't matter.

I have had times where I put in the combo and it didn't work right away. I've never took the trouble to track down why.