screen goes black

[WingWizard]

So here's the story, I built and sold a computer to a friend a long time ago, and I had it for a couple weeks and it all seemed to work fine. However, now he's having problems where the screen goes all black and he has to reboot, and when his computer does crash, it takes down him and his roommates ethernet connection as well (they share a router).

I'm thinking that it's the vid. card, because if it was the psu, cpu, or ram it'd be randomly rebooting and not just going black and hanging. Any other ideas?

Specs:
P4 2.4C
1 gig pc3200 geil RAM
ATI All In Wonder 9700 pro
Abit IS7-E

Running Win XP

[rpertusio]

It does sound video card specific, but I wouldn't rule out the other components.

- What is he trying to do when it goes black?
- Is there anything in the event logs that can help? (warnings/errors)
- When the screen goes black, does the monitor light turn amber colored, instead of green.. (indicating that the monitor lost signal)

I can't find a good reason why it would be taking the router down too.

- rp

[WingWizard]

He says usually he's away at class or something when it goes black, but i have done it to him while he's been sitting there as well.

Yeah, the router thing is what's bugging me too, I've never heard of it before :-\

[Bovon]

Mine is doing the same... I'm not too sure its video completely, but since I really don't have a clue..I can't be sure.

I "think" it could be hard drive or power connector to the hard drive or ribbon cable because there have also been a few instances where I got a blue screen with the words.."unable to write to drive C:. Data may be lost". A reboot will fix either one. I have recently changed out the ribbon cable and connected a different power lead to the drive...waiting...

When I loose video, I have tried to shut down the machine normally by the keyboard. I know its going thru the shut down sequence because of the sounds I have assigned to different functions, but it does not shut down..indicating there is another reason for the loss of video. I use Win98se and Win2K..and I am not sure if XP can be shut down the same way..but you can try it.

Try the following while you have video..then try it again if you loose video.

Alt+Esc. > up arrow 1 time > enter > enter.

Alt + Esc gives you the start menu. Up arrow once highlights the shut down button. 1st enter gives you the shutdown screen and the second enter gives you the shutdown command (if the bullet is in the hole for shutdown..if its in the restart, restart in DOS mode, etc..thats what will happen..if it works..mine doesn't when I loose video..but will work just fine when its normal.