Posted by Kromey at 4:49am Oct 2 '06I've had these exact symptoms twice before. Each turned out to be completely seperate causes.
The first time was the power supply fading. Replacing it fixed the problem.
The second time was the video card overheating and shutting down to protect itself. This was caused by the fan on the video card seizing. Since I'd been wanting to upgrade the video card anyway, I replaced it outright, although a new fan likely would have fixed it for a lot cheaper.
Had a similar problem another time, except it wasn't intermittent - the screen went black, and nothing I could do would bring it back. Hell, after turning off the computer, it wouldn't boot up again! BIOS beep codes told me it was a video adapter problem, and after physically checking the card I discovered that one of the capacitors had boiled over.
In case you haven't figured it out by now, I frequently have problems with heat. I've literally burned a lot of computer components...
The first time was the power supply fading. Replacing it fixed the problem.
The second time was the video card overheating and shutting down to protect itself. This was caused by the fan on the video card seizing. Since I'd been wanting to upgrade the video card anyway, I replaced it outright, although a new fan likely would have fixed it for a lot cheaper.
Had a similar problem another time, except it wasn't intermittent - the screen went black, and nothing I could do would bring it back. Hell, after turning off the computer, it wouldn't boot up again! BIOS beep codes told me it was a video adapter problem, and after physically checking the card I discovered that one of the capacitors had boiled over.
In case you haven't figured it out by now, I frequently have problems with heat. I've literally burned a lot of computer components...
Re: Computer Problems - Kromey