Blank Screen

AnneL

SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God
Joined
Jul 11, 2001
Posts
15,946
Loc
Wautoma, WI USA
My husband's Toshiba laptop has been acting up lately. He'll be working and the screen will suddenly go blank. He'll hit the button that takes it out of hibernation and it will turn back on for a minute or so then go blank again. This is happening when he is actively using it. Is there anyway to correct it? A new one isn't in the budget.
 
Is it running on batteries or plugged in?

Some laptops will automatically do this as the batteries wear down. They do this to protect against a loss of data. As laptops get older, the batteries will have a shorter life.

You may want to check the power management settings. Perhaps it's set to standby/hibernate/or turn off the monitor too soon?

(start -> settings -> control panel -> power management)

One other possibility is a faulty screen saver. I would try a different one, just in case. Check how many minutes also.

(start -> settings -> control panel -> display -> screen saver)

Hopefully one of the above will help!

Mike
 
Yeah, Mike is spot on, check the power management settings.

If none of the above doesn't fix it, then he better hope there's some warrenty left on it.

Shoulda' gotten a Dell, dood ... (j/k)

Oh, and one more question just in case, what OS is he running, Windows 2000? or XP?

[ 10-21-2003, 11:52 AM: Message edited by: WizSteve ]
 
Interesting... the word "D U D E" is censored. Sure it's 4 letters but I didn't think it was that bad...
 
Thanks, guys! I'll this info to him. It runs on XP. It does it both on battery and while plugged in. It doesn't do it every time he uses it, only occasionally, usually when he has something important to do. We'll have to check the warranty also if it is something that needs fixing. We bought it a year and a half ago. His first response to computer problems is usually to get mad instead of thinking through what the problem might be. :rolleyes:
 
It probably won't hurt to run the Windows Update feature and scan it with Ad-Adaware or SpyBot. Some of those lil pesky ad-ware or spy-ware programs can become unstable and cause all kinds of erratic behavior.

D*de
 
Don't know about XP, but I've never had a PC or laptop running 98 or ME that didn't have trouble with the "sleep mode."

Going to sleep wasn't a problem. Waking up was. Usually, I'd have to reboot and - after a couple of episodes - I ALWAYS disabled the power-saving features - something you really hate to do on a laptop.
 
It's never used to connect to the internet, so ad-ware is probably not a problem. He uses it mainly to download photos from the camera (off a card) and to run the projector so he can show people the images he has created of them. It's been a hard working machine for him.
 
Probably a lot more full than it should be. :rolleyes: He thinks he has it narrowed down to the battery though. He said it is only happening when the battery is at 40% or less. It's weird that it does it even when plugged in. He's going to look into getting a new battery.
 
Most laptops have a setting that will put the unit into "hibernation" when the battery life percentage is down to a certain amount. I think mine is set to 5%. This should ONLY work when the unit is running on battery power.

Keep us posted. I'm curious what happens.
 
I'm a new member, and I tried to send a message the other day, but don't see it in this thread. Will try again. If the IBM Stinkpad's powerpack goes bad, it will still try to run on the battery. If you are docked, and you have one of the external powersupplies, you may think you are plugged into a power jack, so "it shouldn't be running on battery," but you actually might be. There should be an icon or a light which would let you know if you are running off the battery.

Echoing someone else, "you shoulda got a Dell."

That's only my opinion.

John,
(Formerly a WorldCom computer desktop support guy)
 
John,

Welcome to the grumble!
 
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