Black out

[Sir_Crashalot]

Hi,

I've bought myself an Acer 22" widescreen lcd monitor last week. Very nice thing, I only have one small problem. Every now and then the computer quits on me completely and I get a black screen. The signal to the monitor is completely gone then and the rest of the pc freezes. I found out it only happens at the highest resolution which is 1680x1050. I got it set to 1600x900 now and it seems stable. Any ideas what it can be?

My specs:
P4 3.06 Ghz
2048MB Ram
Nvidia 7800GS 256Mb

Crash

[Ivan]

Does that happen at full load in 3d mode? if so, get a bigger psu (but check the extra power connectors first)

[Sir_Crashalot]

Forgot to mention, it happens just running Windows XP. Nothing special. This morning it happened during surfing the web, in the afternoon during uninstalling some software. My PSU is a Sweex 500W, so I think that's enough.

Crash

[beaky]

What else have you changed besides upgrading the monitor?
And when you say "the rest of the PC freezes", do you mean the machine "hangs", that is, it won't work at all until you reboot?

[Ivan]

Last time i had to fix a pc with 'missing picture' problems the thing was 100% dead...

[MWISimmer]

I had a similar problem to you Crash, although I just lost the picture temporarily, the PC didn't crash. It was a display driver issue with ATi CCC, a fresh install of the graphics divers seemed to work.

[Ashar]

Something like that happened to me...My machine would stay on but the display would turn off...And I'd get a no signal message on my monitor...I thought it was my PSU first, so I got a new one, and even after that, it happened...To this day, I've not figured out what was causing it...Many people said it was heat but this happened even after I took off the side panel and put a fan next to the CPU with the AC on in the room...Weird :-/

[Sir_Crashalot]

Sean, I really have to give the PC a hard reset. Switching the mains off and on again. Sometimes it works again after that, sometimes not.

Ashar, the temp in the PC seems fine. Enough cooling in there anyhow.

I found out about the resolution by connecting my old 15" monitor again, giving me a stable system. The 22" is on at the moment but at a lower resolution.

Crash

[beaky]

I'm at a loss, then... only time I've seen that, it wasn't a display issue, it was the mobo.  :-/

But if it's stable at a lower res it could just be the gpu dragging the system down because it can't handle that res (?)

[Sir_Crashalot]

Installed the latest Nvidia drivers. Seems to do the trick a little better. Thanks for your replies and advice.

Crash

[Mazza]

it's weird how things like that happens. also weird how my dad's com can not start up with a flat screen hooked up and turned on. but he's got i think a 500W or 1000W