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Screen goes black

Y

yosemitemtb1965

Junior Member
I have a home built machine running Windows 2000,

Asus A7N8X rev. 1.04 mobo
512mb pc3200 ram
AMD Athlon XP 3200
ATI Radeon 9800 PRO
Turbolink 420w power supply

This machine ran great with an Athlon 2100, but when I changed processors and memory, the problem started. When playing games, Battlefield 1942, Typhoon Rising:Joint Operations, Need For Speed Underground 2, etc. the screen goes black after about 5 or 10 minutes and I hear a click in my monitor. Temperatures are fine, I ran memtest for 24 hours straight with no memory problems found, and I'm not running anything odd as far as refresh rates for the monitor go, 60 mhz, 70mhz. I'm starting to suspect the power supply only because it's kind of generic. Any other suggestions? I can surf the web, use Quicken, rip and burn cds and dvds all day long. Thanks

Jerry
 
Hey welcome to the forums

Try downloading & running AtiTool's test for artifacts (forget the technical name for it). Could be a video card problem - ie. overheating on the GPU. Not sure if the 9800 pro has temperature sensors, but if it does you should be able to get a reading using AtiTool or Radlinker, one of the two. If it ends up being an issue with the card overheating, you could always get an aftermarket VGA cooler.

That said, if you have only been experiencing problems since you changed RAM, it could be a ram issue also. Unless you have a ton (4+) optical / IDE devices running off of that PSU, 420w is fine - but again the importance is on brand & reliability of that particular manufacturer. A good 350w PSU trumps a generic 500w PSU any day.

Best of luck!
 
I suspected the RAM first so I ran memtest, a memory testing utility, for over 24 hours straight without it finding any problems. I have ATI Tool installed, I was overclocking the card mildly with the old processor but backed it off to stock levels when I installed the new proc. No artifacts found. My version of ATITool is 0.0.22 and I see version.24 is up with the temperature monitoring function. I'll give it a try, but a stock clocked card shouldn't really be overheating, i have very good airflow around the card in my case.
 
hmm. make sure you are running your RAM & FSB in sync with the nforce2 chipset. Also ensure you have updated to the latest BIOS, which I'm sure you have. have you tweaked AGP settings in the BIOS? if so perhaps you may want to try default settings. got any extra video cards to try in the rig? hope all goes well. i'm sure you will figure it out.
 
I changed my power saving settings to "always on" and that seems to have helped. Strange that the settings were the same as they always were with the other processor but caused trouble now. It's also strange that the monitor was set to power down after 30 minutes of inactivity but it would black out after only ten or fifteen minutes.

Thanks for the help.
 
how old is your monitor?

i had a viewsonic a75f i think it was and it started developing some quirkiness. in particular mine would do the opposite of yours. when i had it set to power down on idle after 10-15 minutes it would shut down but then power back up later.

i ended up giving the monitor to a friend and got a new one and i had no issues with the new one. sure enough though, he had the same problem with the monitor on his old compaq.

i'm not saying thats it but what you have doesn't sound like a ram or psu issue to me. maybe i'm misreading your post but its not like the system is rebooting its just the monitor, no? if it is rebooting then i would think its a psu issue first but it could be a monitor dying maybe.
 
What kind of monitor is this? Is it a CRT or an LCD? And how old is the monitor? LCD panels on laptops typically experience a "blackout" when the inverter (backlight) fails and this is something I wonder whether or not it will happen with the new LCD panel monitors.

If this is an LCD monitor:
If you shine a light, like a flashlight or other bright and directed light, on the monitor when it blacks out can you still faintly see the desktop or applications? This would indicate a failed inverter that would require replacing.
 
Monitor is a Viewsonic 19" E790 CRT about 5 years old. It's not rebooting, the screen goes black and I hear a click in the monitor like it is shutting down. The only way to get it back on is to reboot the computer. I'm going to start swapping stuff around this weekend when I have time, swap the old proc back in, see if that works, swap in a different video card if the proc swap doesn't work (I have an old nVidia Ti4200 laying around), try some different memory if I can scare up some ddr 3200 from a buddy, I'll even pull the old 15" gateway monitor out of storage if I have to. This is frustrating when I was expecting a nice upgrade from pretty basic mods on a machine that has been super stable for a couple of years now.
 
I tried the following google search
crt +("monitor going black" OR "screen goes black" OR "monitor shutdown" OR "monitor shuts down")
and merely came up with the possibility that the circuitry within the monitor is failing. I am not familiar with any appropriate repair options.
 
Thanks for the help, guys. I'm going to try my other monitor this weekend. It's in my storage unit which is in a town about an hour away (I live in the boondocks!)
 
Well, the monitor isn't the problem. I think my next step is to replace the power supply since I see that as the weak link in my system and replacing it would be an upgrade. One thing I did notice with the other monitor is that the computer is shutting it off, the Gateway monitor I was playing with today does a self diagnostic test when the computer shuts down and that popped up when it went black playing Far Cry today.
 
Not the power supply, but I do have a nice 450w OCZ unit psu now, much quieter than the old POS. I installed it last night and to my disappointment, got the black screen.

Now for what might be good news, on the recommendation of a buddy I pulled the battery off the mobo/ reset the CMOS and played a good long game of Joint Operations with only one little hiccup. We'll see how it handles some of my other games tomorrow.
 
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