Become a and go ad-free! Most common: overheatingA suddenly black screen accompanied by what appears to be a completely unresponsive computer is, most often, a symptom that you computer has crashed.And the most common cause of crashes is.Your computer needs good ventilation to avoid overheating. Make certain that the ventilation holes aren’t blocked by dust or other debris.Occasionally, a poorly-designed computer can overheat even if there are no obstructions. Most often this is because the is being used too heavily for too long.
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This can be due to, which I’ll discuss in a moment, or it can be due to running a CPU-intensive program or game continuously for a long time. If the latter is the case, you may need to take steps to provide extra ventilation, or cool the air flowing around or through your computer. Hardware-related failuresHardware does fail. One of the early signs of impending failure is a periodic crash such as you describe.Given that it’s consistently happening 5 to 15 minutes after boot up, after looking at possible overheating issues, I’d probably begin to suspect the power supply next.Just about any hardware component on your computer can cause a crash if it’s starting to fail. Most often it’ll take a technician looking at the machine in person to diagnose imminent hardware failure.In addition, drivers related to the hardware can also come in to play. If you’ve recently updated drivers for a component, it’s possible that the new drivers brought a problem with them in the form of a.The next step would be to notice any correlation between the time the problem started and any software updates on your machine, particularly drivers related to the hardware.Malware remains a possibility, though not to the same degree as it has been in the past.To begin with, most malware isn’t really interested in intentionally crashing your computer.
However, as you might imagine, malware doesn’t have quite the quality-assurance process that most commercial software has, so it’s possible that buggy malware could cause problems.The reason that malware is less likely is that, unlike hardware drivers, it simply doesn’t operate at the same level needed to cause an instant and total crash. Malware-related crashes are usually limited to a single program, some specific functionality that stops working, or in the most common worst-case scenario, the ““.But it remains something to stay on top of, via a complete and up-to-date scan. Perhaps not the computer, but the display. One more common “black screen” failure mode is that the computer’s display has stopped working, but the computer itself is still running properly.One simple way to determine if this is what’s happening is to play some audio on your computer. Load up a longish mp3 play list or audio station and let it play. It usually means your desktop settings don't match your video card's or your monitor's capabilities. There are many reasons your computer could get the 'blue screen of death'.
I'll review some things you can look into to help determine the cause. If your monitor suddenly goes black due to being out of RAM, it's likely your computer has crashed. It is common to use an external screen, or even a projector with a laptop. More than likely you can set up your TV using the same connectors.Posted: May 21, 2015in:This is an update to an article originally posted June 22, 2006Shortlink:Tagged:,. New Here?Let me suggest my to get you started.Of course I strongly recommend you - there's a ton of information just waiting for you.Finally, if you just can't find what you're looking for,! Leo Who?I'm and I've been playing with computers since I took a required programming class in 1976.
I spent over 18 years as a software engineer at Microsoft, and after 'retiring' in 2001 I started in 2003 as a place to help you find answers and become more confident using this amazing technology at our fingertips. Please E-Mail Me Asap! Cheers!Well i keep starting my computer as normal and after about 2minuites it goes to a blue screen and says beggining physical memory dump then it completes and still stays on the blue screen!Please e-mail with the problem, ive downloaded and anti-virus but cant use it because im running in safe mode(direct servies restore) the only way i can get this darn thing to work atm momemnt. This only happened a few days back though when my computer turned off then it kept saying your computer is infected with adware n spyware but i cudnt exit the progam?
Please help asap ben. The blue screen sounds like XP and a heat problem with the power supply. I had that happen. Took the computer apart and cleaned everything. I even took the power supply appart and the CPU heatsink and fan assembly. After a thorough cleaning I put everything back together and I don’t know why but I decided to turn the computer on with the case open.
Low and behold the fan on the power supply was struggling to start and kept stopping. That fan was the cause of the problem. Also if it’s XP with the blue screen and memory dump you have to manualy turn off the computer.On so far as the virus thing goes. It’s probably not a virus per-se but a looping code that won’t let you quit. For this you have to do a Ctrl/Alt/Delete and manually close the browser.
This is regardless of your Windows version. Hope this may helpAlan. I think I have solved the “black screen” problem, and I know virtually nothing about computers. After I bought my HP f1503 monitor with HP computer about 3 years ago, I began having problems from the beginning. After about 15 days spending in excess of 15 hours on the phone with MSN technical support in Nova Scotia (and after spending 35 bucks for technical support), a very smart person discovered that my Norton anti-virus software that had been installed at the retail store where I purchased the computer had basically attacked my computer, placing a firewall between me and the internet, preventing me from accessing the internet. After that problem was corrected, and after downloading Semantic (phonetic) software as well, I began noticing the black screen syndrome.
I do not believe for one instant that my relatively new computer monitor is defective; rather, I firmly believe that Semantec and/or Norton anti-virus personal firewalls are the true culprits. I basically removed the programs from my hard drive and the problem has corrected itself. I also believe that all Norton/Semantic products place a fire wall inside the PC and cause such problems. It reminds me of a certain Star Trek episode (original series) where the computer attacked everything (NOMAD, or something like that); perhaps Norton should rename itself NOMAD. Although, like Leo said, this can be caused by a miriad of things, I had this same problem happen to me a few weeks ago, so I figured I’d share. I had two seperate Dell Optiplex GX270’s at my office that, within a week of each other, would randomly show a black screen. The power light on the PC would remain solidly lit, but everything else would become unresponsive as if the machine was off.I opened up the case (after completely reinstalling the operating system all all apps) and saw the problem.
On both machines, several of the capacitors had blown out; in one of the machines they had visibly leaked. The capacitors are the tall, tubular shaped things that stick up off of the board (there are good pictures of damaged ones here )Repairing this requires either a supply of the correct type of capacitors, a steady hand, and a soldering iron, or, as in my case, a long and annoying call to Dell support to get a replacement motherboard.An initial visual inspection of all installed hardware (add on devices, like video cards, frequently have capacitors as well) would have saved me a lot of time, and is another point to add onto your troubleshooting list.Cheers!. Dell puts out defective products and doesn’t back them up! One example I have this beautiful Dell Inspiron that a client returned to me. It wont turn on.
Ther are two series of three beeps follow by 7 beeps. My research last year informed me that this series had a problem in that the CPU gets ‘unstuck’ from the MB. Some people had a temporary solution to wrap the laptop in a blanket (true) and apply heat as with a hairdryer.
Actually, this worked for a short timeAt any rate, seems this happened to a very large percentage of these laptops and Dell has refused responsibility. I’ve bee tempted to get int the machine to see for myself, but pain from handicap has, so far, prevented me from doing so. I would NEVER purchase a Dell for this reason, and I go out of my way to keep any of my clients from purchasing one, no matter how good the deal seems. My friends PC starts to Boot up, goes through POST and the Windows Logo appears, then the Screen changes and gives various options of starting Windows, the keyboard does not respond and after the 30 seconds tries to boot but the monitor goes into standby mode and nothing can be seen on the screen, after pressing the Reset button, the Windows Screen appears again and the System keeps Restarting by itself with nothing on the Screen, it is not possible then to go into the BIOS to see what is happening or to change or load Default settings. Im triing to help my mom fix her pc. She opened an email and the computer shut down.
When she turned it back on it flashed the compaq screen with F1 and F10 at the bottom then goes to a black screen with a cursor at the top. The F1 screen brings up BIOS mode F10 and F8 do nothing and esc. Bring up a boot order dialog. Ive tried burning discs off my pc and putting them on hers to try and restore her windows but it doesnt seem to be reading the cd. The cd rom is working the green light comes on and you can here the disk spin but then nothing happens and it goes back to the black screen with the cursor. Can any one walk me threw bios mode? Or help me restore my moms pc?
She just started a buisness and all her contacts are in the pc!! I was running Photoshop CS2, designing a signature for myself, right in the middle of doing my work, the computer crashed unexpectedly, hearing the eerie sound of death. 10 minutes later, when I was loading a screen in EverQuest, it crashed again. Then, I tried to check for spyware with Spybot, it didn’t get through, because it crashed again. I don’t know what’s causing this? I may have been to a few bad sites (porn sites), or download more then 100 songs on my computer But is that really the cause of the computer crash?. I am a IT Specialist with IHS/DHHS and I have replaced over 180 motherboards with the bloating or leaky capacitors.
Model(s) in question are the Dell GX270 Optiplex (all form factors) and less on the GX 280’s. Symptoms were like the computer went into hibernating/powersave, you would have to restart; some would restart repeatedly; some would go black screen twice a day or once every two or three days. All would go to black screen. It was very frustrating troubleshooting each one until Dell admitted to a capacitor problem on mainboards manufactered before a certain date.
Norton antivirus was causing black screen & not letting me to restoe my computer to the earlier date:After I uninstalled my norton antivirus by going to symantec (noton) website and using their removal tools (I could not remove it by using add or remove) was able to restore my computer to the earlier date immediately and it has been one month I haven,t had any black screen. So,either norton boosts the existing problem of the computer or causing the blackscreen by its own interaction.you can try it if your computer is using norton. Increasing,ram did not help very long,but I think one month of normal screen would be enough to judge my attempt. Hi.On my 2004 XP Packardbell,I am getting the oppoite of the above problem. Instead of getting a Black screen after 5to15 mins afgter boot,mine starts as soon as ithas fully booted.I have put up with it for around 2months but it seems to be getting very gradually worse.It goes Black on all but a small handful of movements and clickings of the mouse.Their is also a horizontal flickering associated with this problem.After a while,however, itsometimes improves but is generally unpredictable. I did once notice an improvement after using checkdisk and recovery of bad cluster utility and defragmenting.
However it advised me to defrag ontwo occasions only a month apart so I have been ignoring this having been told that over defragging can seriously harm the hard drive.Hope this comment might interest you.Yours, Art. My Toshiba laptop screen was jittery for about a day but still working fine. I turned it off and turned it on after a few hours, after I clicked the USER NAME, the laptop screen went black, but I still could hear the computer working, so I hooked the Toshiba laptop up with my big old Dell desk top screen and the screen WORKED! Seem like my laptop monitor is dead, though I can still faintly see the screen’s data it’s like the laptop screen is 95% balck. Any idea what, if anything, I can do to fix this. I have done all of these things, at first i thought i was my mouse and keyboard so i switched out, still didnt work.
I plugged monitor back(switched from Nvidia Geforce 8500gt to motherboard) into the standard lot on the panel and nothing. The only time this happens is when its been sitting for about ten minutes ( the time my screensaver is supposed to come up after) and goes black. Nothing short of turning off the computer will get the screen back up. With it not being GFX card and having tested for viruses and switching out equipment nothing has improved. Then i thought could it be the motherboard malfunctioning? I already have a USB port that doesn’t work so it does make sense.
I had my Toshiba Satellite Turion 64 for several months. Not long after purchasing, my monitor would go black requiring reboot to function. I took the advice in this post and played a CD leaving it to continuously rotate play.
Eventually, the screen went black and the CD no was no longer playing either. I guess this means my computer completely stopped working. What does this mean? I did purchase extended warranted which requires me to mail my laptop back to the manufacturer. At this point, it looks like that may be my only alternative. This is actually for my friend who has xp operating system and in recent time has been getting a black screen, he has checked all the connections, they are fine, has also blown the computer out so that it is clean, now he gets black screen sometimes as early as 7 – 10 minutes after start up, it lasts approx 1/2 hour and then can see the desk top again, these episodes are becoming more frequent, could it be the power supply on the way out? The video card.or time to buy an new computer.he was thinking of reformatting the hard drive but not sure that this would help if the problem does lie in the power supply or video cardif we are in an im and the mouse is in the right place he can still send me messages, however with the black screen he cannot read the response.any help would be appreciated.
I have problem with my DELL laptop.my monitor went to a black screen while I was doing something in Matlab, the system worked because I could hear the sound.I turned off computer and then started it again, my system starts properly but then again I am getting black screen,the picture comes randomly for a second and then loose again.if I wait I can see that my system is going in stand by mode after 12h I turned it again and now works properly for about 50 minutes and then again black screencan you please tell me whats the problem? Is it virus, power supply or?. I have a Toshiba Tecra A6. When my computer crashes, the backlight to the LCD screen shuts off and a buzzing sound comes out of the speakers. Strangely this only occurs when viewing videos through Windows Media Player or when viewing youtube videos. I updated my flash player and WMP, but I still get this problem. It’s been occuring for probably 2 or 3 months now and I’ve had this laptop since March or April of 2006.
The only tinkering I’ve done is undervolting all multipliers to the CPU. I restored the voltages to default for a bit to see if that would solve the problem but unfortunately it hasn’t. I’ve tried different ATI drivers. I’m sure it’s not overheating, well considering the CPU anyways, as RMclock registers temps in the mid 40’s. If it means anything, I can watch movies/clips through VLC player flawlessly and I do so several times a week. I’ve updated as many drivers as I could. I’ve had someone from dslreports.com check my Hijackthis logs and other logs back last October as I got a virus from accepting to update my JAVA from an internet explorer popup (silly).
Any help would be appreciated. I recently purchase a Toshiba Satellite Laptop and I noticed when my Laptop was idle for a while the display went blank. This happened every time it was idle. I have now rectified the cause. First go into Control Panel, click on Performance Information & Tools, this takes you to Rate & Improve your Computer’s Performance, then click Adust Power Settings, this takes you to Power Plan and then click Choose when to turn off the Display, this takes you to Change settings for the plan, and choose which option suits you, I chose “Never”.
Hope this info. I have the exact same problem and I have found that its my video card overheating. My vid card is GS 8800 on a wins xp. I had the same computer and same configuration/settings for 2 years. It just recently started overheating.
What are some ways to fix this overheating issue? Do i need a new card?
And I went to that one screeen that tells me my temperature and my vid card was extremely high. Forgot how high but quite high. So that confirms the overheating of my vid card. Please email me for solution thanks. Hi!I have gone through the same problem (on multiple games including SC2, MW2, ArmaII, etc) and i believe i am familiar with it.Qosmio crashing during games (even freecell) with a black screen and loopy sound from the speakers.
Solved only with a hard reset. Problem does not happen if you are running off the battery.I believe i might have a solution. I have seen the problem crop up across the board on all Qosmio laptops (including my own X300) and i eventually did quite a lot of research and found out a solution.The problem really pertains to fixing the clock frequencies between the GPU and the CPU and that caused all the problems. They apparently loose sync with each other at variable speeds due to a bug in the power management.The detailed explanation and solution are on and you can check out the writeup there.It worked for me and it has worked for over 100 other people who have liked it and used it.!!Warning!! It is a COMMERCIAL solution (although it has a 100% refund guarantee) so dont go to the site unless you want to.I am not soliciting for business. Just letting you know that there IS a way to solve the problem and Toshiba are either not concerned or unable to solve the problem.
Please dont make the mistake that i made (taking my out of warranty laptop to toshiba) and paying for servicing it.The service center cant help as it just DOES NOT KNOW how to solve the problem. They service it and hope for the best.Hope that was some helpLordNOD. I was having the same problem that i read here and could not solve that for a very long time.I have a qosmio from Toshiba and i always used to give me the black screen of death and i was really frustrated.I read in the comments from a guy called LordNOD that there is a website calledIt has a solution and i tried it (yes i risked sending 15 bucks to the guy) And it worked!
Saved me a bundle of money! Toshibas asked for $1200 to fix it and he did it in 15.
Totally worth itDo test it out as i was glad i did (an no no one paid me or asked me to do this! I thought i should share my good fortune with others and prevent people from wasting hard earned cash in these hard times)Gary. I think i have a answer to this the problem in my case was cracking of the windows code after installation/ formatting with windows 7.My Hardware guy came with his hard disk attached the hard disk to my USB port and simply put the code in the control panel and restarted the laptop twice. It was done in minutes. And i was rid of three problems error message when starting for genuine windows software, build 7000 error message in the right bottom corner and black screen. Please think twice before formatting or viral attacks.
My computer started going to black screen after Time/Warner advised they were giving Roadrunner customers 40% more speed free and all I had to do was disconnect power to the modem for 30 seconds. I don’t know if this was just a coincidence that it happened at this time or if it was connected to adding the speed. When the screen goes black on my PC, it will come back up fine when I turn off and back on. It doesn’t seem to go black until I have left it on idle for some time.
It appears everyone here is talking about laptops. Would the solutions be the same for a PC? Leo’s general comment that “there are many possibilities” is very true! I will tell share my findings re: laptops.
I have had several on my test bench that exibited the same black screen symptom. The first was my daughters Acer. I found the processor cooling duct PACKED with lint.
Since that fix (cleaned the duct) the unit has been working another 2 years. This problem was found on others. No surprise, as they spend much time on someone’s lap sucking in lint. I recommend a cooler but settle for a small board large enough for the computer and mouse, if used. A secondary benefit is a cooler lap!The second problem seen was the Heat Pipe contact on the processor. It was on a less than 1 year old Acer.
The contact area was NOT Cleaned in original factory assembly. It required a new mb, cleaning the heat pipe contact and Artic Silver compound.HEAT IS THE NEMISIS OF ALL COMPUTERS which includes desktops!. I have an HP notebook I am having a problem with. I just made some changes in my subscription to my internet, TV, and phone bundle by Time Warner Cable. My computer was working fine.
My computer screen is completely black now after the technician plugged a line into my notebook (Looks like a telephone port), I guess to activatenot sure what it was for, and then removed the plug. He didn’t stay to check it after doing whatever he did cause I was so tired, had just got off a 12 hr shift. I told him it was OK, that my computer was slow to start and I didn’t want to take any more of his time than I had to. I tried to turn my computer on 2 days later and I can’t. You can hear the fan on, and the Internet and audio symbols are red.
You can see the turn on button lit and there are 2 flashing lights-one next to the caps lock key and one above the scroll key. But, the screen is completely black. I’ve tried rebooting the computer, taking out the battery and putting it back in quite unsuccessfully. The technician from TW came to check it but wasn’t much help. He told me I have to take it in to a computer place to get checked out and if it was something Time Warner did, they will cover it.
But, in the mean time I have to pay for the repair myself. Do you have any ideas of what could have happened? Have you ever heard of something like this happening before?. First, I am amazed at all the black screen problems.I have a top level Dell 8700, and I get black screens. It never happens when the computer is in active use.
It happens randomly when the computer is idling. At first I had to shut the computer down by holding down the power button. Then I found an odd workaround.
The computer is connected to a KVM switch with another rarely used computer. When I get the black screen I hit “scroll Lock” twice to shift to the other computer (which need not be running.) and then hit “scroll Lock” twice more, to return. My main computer display returns but with the resolution changed to a very low setting ie everything on the screen is big and coarse. I then go to settings and reset the the screen resolution by hitting “Detect”. Everything is back to normal.I then hit Alt + Tab and return to the browser screen, leaving the screen settings screen available in the background if I need to repeat the process.All the power saving options are “off”This computer has another problem that may or may not be related. If I hit “restart” the computer shut down, then will hang at the “Dell” screen permanently. If I “Shut down” and then press the power button – no problem – it starts normally.I don’t think I’ll buy another Dell.
They are not what they used to be. I didn’t see anyone mention the possibility of a laptop battery causing this problem. I have an old XP laptop that I recently took out, left on the charger for several weeks, then decided to take it outside. I unplugged the power cable with the machine still running, but before I could make it to the back door I heard “click” and the screen went black. Could I have had my hand over the ventilation holes, and caused it to overheat?
I let it cool a bit, then turned it back on, only to have it turn itself off again a few seconds later. When I plugged it back into the A/C adapter, the problem disappeared.
The battery is only about 5 years old, and has seen little use. I have not tried yet, but i believe a few discharge/charge cycles may bring it back to life. (I’m not sure if Li-ion batteries develop “memory” issues as do NiCd or NiMH batteries.)This is something to consider if you have a laptop that has been sitting unused for a long time.
Hello, I didn’t see my problem. My computer works fine. When I quit for a few minutes and go do something else, instead of the computer going to sleep, the screen now turns blue.
I have a cursor but I can’t get the computer to “wake-up.” The only way to get out of the blue screen is by shutting the computer off and rebooting. The laptop then works just fine as long as I continue to stay at the computer. Leave for a few minutes and instead of just going to sleep the screen turns blue. I had this problem.
I played the music as recommended by Leo in this article and when the screen went black (would do it anywhere from 3 to 20 minutes after startup), the music turned into a long beeping sound. Turns out it was a loose PCIe cable to my graphics card. After doing the black screen for the 96th time in 10 days or so, my computer finally gave me the solution upon a hard reset. It told me upon booting up to “Please power down and connect the PCIe power cable(s) for this graphics card”. I opened up my PC and behold, part of the PCIe cable that runs from the power supply to the GPU had popped loose of the graphics card. I simply snapped it back in place and the problem is now fixed. My husbands Dell Latitude Laptop computer goes black after about 20 to 30 minutes after he turns it on (but it’s not going black every time he uses it) what could be the problem?
We do know the fan is working. We have a computer tech who helps us keep viruses and malware out of the computer we even run scans nearly ever day to make sure there’s NO virus or malware and ex.
So what could be the reason it’s going black at times. I bought the laptop 1 1/2 yrs ago for Christmas so it’s not that old. What can I check that may keep it from blacking out OH!!! When it blacks out he can press the on button and it goes back where it was when it blacked out on him. A black screen appeared out of a blue when i was online and had alot of tabs opened even downloading some files then it came so i pumped the space bar and i could hear the response.When it turns black, it doesnt show up again unless when u reset the windows but with that i lose all my data and files. I even don’t know wat caused that coz even if i try system updating the compter it turns black after some hoursAm using a DELL(laptop) latitude E5 series, i core 5 second generation with windows 10. Before commenting please:.
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