Help!! Black screen of death?

[Johanthegnarler]

Installed new memory.. just using onboard video card.. suddenly a random black screen pops up and then comes back to normal .. like nothing happened.

Doesn't appear to be a video driver issue.. monitor is a viewsonic flat lcd va721.. and the memory is kingston 2x512 kingston value ram..

I posted it here for fast response and I have no idea if its a CPU issue.. PSU... or what.


Also.. outlook is giving up on life when attempting to contact our pop3 mail server... it keeps trying to receive a response from the server and gets stuck in a cpu killing loop.

Could this just be a dust issue? Running memtest right now..

 

[chaosgs]

Prob the new memory. when i built my new computer i had to exchange my ram 3 times o get working ram. also plz tell us what the error message said when the black screen popped up. if its the same error i had ill remember.

 

[elpresidente2075]

If the black screen (blank, I'm assuming)happens only during boot or right after boot, and is only for a short duration (less than 5 seconds), its probably the video graphics subsystem testing itself. Perfectly normal and nothing to worry about, besides the extra nuisance.

I doubt there is anything wrong with your memory. Kingston Value Ram is definitely on the high end as far as quality in my book, as I have had it in several systems for years and never had a problem with it. No exchanges or anything.

About outlook? Looks like a setting got changed either on the server or on your client. Either way you need to check your settings on your outlook so that they are proper, make sure the firewall is allowing the traffic properly, etc.

Also it would be helpful if you posted exactly when these problems started showing up...

 

[Johanthegnarler]

well the problem is.. after the ram was installed i suppose these problems started happening.. but as soon as outlook started going haywire.. it did as well.
So the new memory could be the problem.. outlook.. or just the fact that i moved a machine that hasn't been moved in a year. "Office rot"

I'm guessing this motherboard only likes SIMM's.. but if i threw DIMMS in would it most likely just not work? Never had to deal with this issue..

the black screen almost seems like its the viewsonic monitor shutting itself off.. then turning back on.

the memory has passed memtest a few times now.. i just de-dusted the system.

just installed a crap video card to see if the onboard video was having issues with the memory as well..

there are no errors in the event viewer.. or was there ever an error that popped up thats why i can't figure out what the hell is going on.

...and finally on outlook.. its set up correctly.. ports are all set up on the firewall.. correctly.. and even turned the damn thing off just to try to get it to work right..

I'd like to just term this as office junk and have them buy a new computer.. ^^

 

[chaosgs]

simms and dimms cant go in the opposite socket (im in computer class and just asked teacher)

 

[elpresidente2075]

the black screen almost seems like its the viewsonic monitor shutting itself off.. then turning back on.

That is exactly what is happening. Happens all the time. Its the self-test I was talking about.

...and finally on outlook.. its set up correctly.. ports are all set up on the firewall.. correctly.. and even turned the damn thing off just to try to get it to work right..

Its probably due to the fact that its not on the same network as its used to and the server settings have to be modified to fix that problem.

I'd like to just term this as office junk and have them buy a new computer.. ^^

Hopefully they will get you a kick-butt system that will PWn the one you're dealing with now

I feel I must comment on the simm/dimm situation. The main reason that a simm won't work in a dimm slot (and vice versa) is the fact that a dimm card is nearly 2 times as long as a simm card. Here is a good illustration of what I mean:
http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en-commons/thumb/8/87/300px-RAM_n.jpg
The simm card is the third thing from the top, and dimms consist the lower two. In short, it would not work.

 

[Valerarren]

Just a thought (possibly from once working tech support), but is either the cable connecting the monitor to the computer, or the monitor's power cable loose? Could you have simply bumped it?

I've also seen a dying CRT monitor do something like that a long time ago.

I just want to understand when the black screen occurs, during bootup, randomly in windows? Can you replicate it?