Member Avatar for Leslieusername

Okay, I have been busy reading all these posts, but it seems there is a load of potential problems.

I just bought a new lcd monitor (a Viewsonic VA721), my computer is about 4 years old, an HP 512n. Got everything connected and working okay, but the monitor goes black after being on for some time...maybe half an hour. Someone suggested playing music in the background to help diagnose...when the screen goes black, music also stops, so not a monitor problem? Also I noticed that the hard drive light goes out, too.

Hopefully, this is enough information to get me closer to the actual problem. Thanks in advance for your help! :cheesy:

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As suggested, checking power-management is a good first step. With those basic checks already done, the objective now is to isolate whether the display, the graphics subsystem, or the PC power/board is failing. The quickest way to narrow that down is to force different combinations of monitor, cable and PC so the failing component becomes obvious.

Next steps that will help and future readers isolate the fault:

  • Test the monitor on a different, known-good computer.
  • Test the PC with a different monitor or cable (and try the other video connector if available).
  • When the screen goes dark, note whether the rest of the machine is still alive: fans spinning, keyboard LEDs (Caps/Num) toggle, network link/activity, or whether the whole system appears to lose power. That distinction separates a display/graphics problem from a PSU/motherboard failure.
  • Try booting into the BIOS setup or Safe Mode and leave it running. If it dies in BIOS, the cause is almost certainly hardware.

If the problem looks hardware-related, try the following in order: reseat the video card and power connectors, remove and clean dust from the case and heatsinks, test with onboard video (if present), and—if available—swap in a known-good PSU or graphics card to confirm. On the software side, check Windows Event Viewer for driver or kernel-power errors and try updating/rolling-back the video driver; only consider BIOS/firmware updates if a vendor notes a fix for this exact symptom. Back up important data before stress-testing. If component swaps are not possible, the pattern above (display-only vs full-power loss) will usually point to GPU vs PSU/motherboard and guide the next repair step.

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Member Avatar for DavidRyan

Could you check over your Power Options (in the conrtol panel).
See if your PC is set to go to Hibernate or Stand By after a certain amount of time. If it is, that is the likely cause.

Member Avatar for Leslieusername

Thanks, David. No it is not set to hibernate..I never had this problem until getting the new monitor and I have not changed any settings. Once it goes black, the only thing I can do is reboot again, then it is good for another bit of time. From what I have been reading it seems it could be the video card, motherboard, BIOS...I am hoping that someone can help me deduce what is the most likely problem. Thank you!

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