Black Screen Crash

[bingle]

I'm having a weird problem right now where my video will essentially shut off - my monitor just loses the signal and there's no recovery, short of a reboot. I'm not sure what's causing it; my only guess is that it might be power-related? It seems to happen during CPU- and hard-drive-intensive tasks, like video encoding, but not during things like 3D games. It also only began happening a little while ago, so it's possible it's a software issue, but I'm not sure what software could do that.

Here are my specs:
300-watt power supply
Radeon 9800 Pro
Athlon XP 2600+ (1.9 GHz)
DVD burner
2 80-gig hard drives (7200rpm)

My system hardly ever gets above 40C, so I don't think it's heat-related... I've also tried the most recent Catalyst drivers and they didn't seem to help.

Any ideas would be appreciated, this is starting to get annoying :-(

Bingle

[NavySEAL]

Well, it seems that the MINIMUM requirement for the 9800 PRO is a 300-WATT PSU. Or it could be because you might have Overclocked some of your hardware?

[jonjon42]

the power supply is not adaquate for that hardware I think. alot of that stuff is pretty power hungry. get a bigger (400w+) PSU...

[bingle]

Actually, it's a 350 watt, my mistake. Power does seem to be a possibility, then, but is there anything else anyone can think of? I'd rather exhaust all the possibilities before buying hardware :-)

Also, as far as power supplies go, anyone know how Thermaltake's PSUs are? I have a nice Antec one right now (the SmartBlue) and I like Antec stuff. I've not had any experience with Thermaltake.

Thanks for your help so far :-)

Bingle

[skaven]

I wouldn't recommend anything other than an Antec power supply...I've replaced far too many non-Antec PSUs to recommend anything other than ol' reliable Antec.

[bitrunner]

Originally Posted by bingle

Actually, it's a 350 watt, my mistake. Power does seem to be a possibility, then, but is there anything else anyone can think of? I'd rather exhaust all the possibilities before buying hardware :-)

Also, as far as power supplies go, anyone know how Thermaltake's PSUs are? I have a nice Antec one right now (the SmartBlue) and I like Antec stuff. I've not had any experience with Thermaltake.

Thanks for your help so far :-)

Bingle

I'd get a new power supply, but short of that try unhooking one of the hard disks as well as the DVD burner. If that fixes it, you know you have a power issue, but even if not a new PSU would be good.

[oiekeooiyw]

Not sure of the OS and you didn't say if it happens when you are working or if it happens after you take a few minutes away from your computer. Many of the MS operating systems have issues coming back from Stand By. I would check your settings and make sure it not set to power down the monitor and not to go into Stand By.

[jonjon42]

also another issue I've found if you have several power hungry devices on one circuit (in your house) you may get these crashes (happened to me)

[bingle]

Originally Posted by oiekeooiyw

Not sure of the OS and you didn't say if it happens when you are working or if it happens after you take a few minutes away from your computer. Many of the MS operating systems have issues coming back from Stand By. I would check your settings and make sure it not set to power down the monitor and not to go into Stand By.

It's XP. It doesn't go into standby - I originally had it set to power off the monitor after a few minutes, but I noticed that it wouldn't come back up, sometimes, so I switched that option off. Now it still does it, though ;-P

Anyway, I'll try unplugging some stuff from the PSU and see if it still happens.

Thanks all!

Bingle