Occasionally my computer likes to conk out on me. This is the situation: At absolutely any time, doesn't matter what applications are running, or how many, my monitor will simply black out on me. I'm using an HP Pavilion MX70 monitor from the old family set up on my PC, and the green LED on it signifies that it is connected and has power, obviously. But at any random time, usually very sparse between times, the monitor will seemingly just turn itself off, the LED goes orange signifying that there is no input. I can turn it on and off, and rarely the screen will come back on, only to find the resolution and colors have foobared, and the keyboard won't work. The mouse, once, has worked, but only left to right, not up and down. This is very rare, usually the monitor won't pick itself back up again. So, 99% of the time, I have to restart, which of course makes everything better again. I can't see how it can be the monitor or graphics card that is the problem, as after restarting it is all fine. It doesn't happen on certain programs or sites, it's completely random. My system specs are: AMD Athlon 2800mhz+ (@ 2.31ghz) with sufficient cooling from a CoolerMate IceCube (as recommended by Bit Tech ) DFI Lan Party KT400A mobo Crucial 1gb PC2700 DDR Ram (2x512mb) 120gb Seagate Barracuda 8mb cache hdd Asus ATI Radeon 9600XT 128mb Soundblaster 5.1 Live All my graphics drivers are up to date. I have not messed about with flashing the BIOS or anything, the slight overclock was done by a friend of mine. I am planning to buy a 36gb Raptor and a WD 200gb IDE hdd in the near future, which would enabled me to do a clean install of Windows XP Home on the Raptor. Does anyone know of the problem I am having, or know the answer? Or do you think I am wise to wait until format and start again, and see if the problem goes away? Cheers for any help or advice you can offer.
Swap the monitor for another and see if that solves the problem. If not the gfx card could be fubar'd....
if it still isnm't fixed then reinstall drivers could be that is ****ed up or better return your overclocks back to default clock settings
This is a weird one, at first I thought it'd proly just be a dicky monitor, but when you say you keyboard / mouse play up when it does, makes me think it's something deeper . . Can't make sense of this one, maybe a conflict somewhere along the way? Checkout your IRQ table for conflicts, maybe re-install gfx and mobo drivers.
Really sounds like a hardware problem with either the video card or the MoBo. Is that Radeon PCI or AGP? If its PCI I would try it in another slot. And definately try to find another card or try that card in another system and see if the problem moves or goes away.
The one time I actually managed to get the monitor back up, the keyboard and mouse threw me a bit, I thought it would be a simple GFX replacement. They say you learn something new everyday. So teach me, what's an IRQ table, and where do I find it?
Well, after trying all possible driver uninstallations/reinstallations/driver cleanups, every combo you could imagine, and the graphics card ONLY works when no drivers are installed. How screwed up is that?!? I can view the web and do basic day to day stuff, but gaming is out of the question. Scrolling webpages and documents leads to massive refresh chunks which is annoying. Luckily I bought it in January of this year, so it's within a certain websites 1 year warranty, so I'm trying for a replacement/upgrade. Wish me luck!
You havevnt said which PSU, i would suggest swapping it out. I had the same problem with my system, turned out it was a messed up PSU! Good luck
I'm not sure what PSU I have, I think it maybe an Ebuyer Value 400w cheapo one, it's done the job I needed it for, besides it's being replaced by a new, cooler, quieter one soon.
Like I said, I got the new hard drives, solving all the problems I had bar this blackout one! It was all going smoothly, everything ran fine, until I played C&C Generals, of which about 10 minutes in, the mouse suddenly wouldn't anywhere bar left and right, few seconds later, the background music juddered/crashed and the monitor went black again with the usual messed up lines. The graphics drivers for the Radeon 9600XT are the latest (Catalyst from ATI.com), motherboard drivers are in place and everything, I cannot se what the problem could be. Motherboard or PSU guys? Either way its gonna cost me about 60 quid for the replacements (either an Abit NF7 -S or an Antec TruePower 430W PSU) unless you can recommend me other pieces of kit.
I agree with Highland3r. Try a different monitor before fussing with any settings. Work down the line, the other monitor (with its own power cord) does it too, try a different vid card.. -scoob8000
I've tried a different video card (Radeon 9200, with same drivers as the current one) and that worked ok for the small period of time I had it for, but my mate who I swapped with said that my Radeon 9600 XT worked fine on his. I'll switch monitors when I can get the other one out of the loft I think.
i'd say your PSU is struggling. The 9200 probably worked as it uses less power then the 9600. Your mates psu was probably beefy enough to run the 9600 without any problems .
It may be the overclock I think the KT400 or any of the socket A KT line up for that matter did not have a PCI/AGP lock on it so the overclock maybe messing with the pci/AGP bus
The whole PSU suggestion does seem to make sense, it is only a 300w Ebuyer Value one. For my spec PC (see sig), what would you recommend? An £80 Antec TruePower 550w was my first recommendation by a friend I can occasionally trust on these sorts of things.
even a 350w Antec would power that easily. Still, the 480w Antecs seem to be the sweet spot (over here) you get more watts for your dollar (or pound )
