Member Avatar for Tzwingman

I have recently upgraded to a flat panel monitor. Since the upgrade my monitor will go to a black screen every once so often if I am playing a dvd, reviewing photos/graphics, etc. I’m thinking that my “aging system cannot handle all of the video, audio, graphics, etc. It stays black for about 1-2 seconds and then goes back to where it was.

It appears that I cannot upgrade my video/graphic because it is on the actual motherboard. I do not have a lot of experience with upgrading or changing graphic cards or motherboards so I need your “expertise.

What would you suggest I do so that my computer can play a dvd or view an online photo album without having the monitor go black or continuously flash? Do I need a new motherboard, graphic card, both? Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!!!!

HP Pavilion PC - Model XE748
XP Home Ed.
Intel (R) Celeron (TM) 700 MHz processor (socket 370)
Intel 810 Chipset
320 MB RAM
Western Design 80GB Hard Drive (I upgraded to this)
Lite-On DVDRW SOHW-812S (I upgraded to this)
Graphics down (on motherboard) integrated in Chipset. No AGP slot.
Video Graphics PCI Local Bus
Controller Intel 810
Video Memory 11 MB shared memory ; integrated graphics; not upgradable

  • 2 Contributors
  • 1 Reply
  • 345 Views
  • 19 Hours Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by moderate_rock48

Dani AI

Generated

Short version: the brief blackouts are most often a software/driver or video‑decode problem, not a bad monitor. Before spending money on a board or case surgery, try a few low‑cost checks and fixes that commonly cure DVD/photo blackouts on cramped OEM PCs.

Quick, ordered checks

  • Verify the monitor and cable first: connect that flat panel to another PC (or connect a CRT to this PC) to rule out the panel/cable/resync issue.
  • Update or reinstall the display driver and the chipset/IDE drivers from HP or Intel. A failing or generic driver can drop the video stream briefly.
  • Check the DVD drive’s transfer mode in Device Manager (IDE channel → Advanced): enable DMA if it’s stuck in PIO. Playing from the HDD (copy the DVD files) is a quick way to test whether optical throughput is the issue.
  • Try a different player and toggle its hardware‑acceleration/overlay settings (some players let you enable/disable overlay or use software decoding). Also try lower resolution/refresh and 16‑bit color to see if the flashes stop.
  • Watch Task Manager/Event Viewer while a blackout happens. If CPU or disk spikes or a driver error is logged, that points to software/driver or resource limits rather than the panel.

If those don’t fix it

  • Follow ’s caution about OEM cases and tiny PSUs: adding a powerful card is often impractical. The economical upgrades to try first are firmware/driver updates and maxing the RAM supported by the board.
  • If you still need reliable DVD playback, consider a low‑cost replacement PC or a standalone DVD player rather than trying to retrofit that HP. In many OEM designs the time and cost to make a full upgrade exceed buying a used/refurbished machine with a proper video card.

These steps will isolate whether the problem is a bad monitor/cable, a driver/software issue, or fundamental hardware limits.

Member Avatar for moderate_rock48

It looks to me that I have the very same computer as you...unfortunately, upgrading with these hunks of junk is quite difficult and near impossible.

First off you cant really get an expensive video card because there is no agp slot on the motherboard. Also it wouldnt do you much good since the mobo would extremely bottle neck the performance...and the cpu couldnt feed the gpu enough information fast enough.

Second of all if your thinking of going the PCI video card card route, not happenin. The power supply in these computers are 100watts, and a video card needs at least 350watts..Just get a bigger power supply right? Wrong, the power supplies in these computers are tiny, and the space provided for them does not have enough adequate space for a standard 350watt power supply.

Third, you could get a new mobo, but you could only find a mobo that fit your case from hewlett packard, and they jack the price up 3 times...Even if you found a better mobo, I doubt it would work, because there is not agp slot in the back to connect...So if you plan on getting the torch out and remodeling your case, and spending an arm and a leg. I would just put 512mb of ram in there, max out the ram.

Im not sure why the movies cutting out....I can play .avi movies fine on mine, but my computer is much too slow to play dvd movies on it. Hope that helps ya

:D

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.