monitor turns off, pc stays on

**Don in the North** · April 14, 2009, 12:28 AM

so last few times ive been playing empire, im about 4/5ths thru winning a battle, and suddenly the monitor will turn off completely, green light to orange, but the system will still be running, i can hear the fans rotating still.
the games' sound stops as well, the only way out of it is to restartpc.

turning the monitor back on manually will say it detects no signal.

anyone else getting this or is it a hardware related issue only im getting?

better still can anyone tell me how to fix it?

ps power options are all set to 'never' in terms of when to turn it off

**Mister Sir** · April 14, 2009, 12:42 AM

Right off the bat, it might be your graphics card.

Try checking the core and GPU temperature -- what are your system specs?

Can you duplicate the problem with other applications, or is Empire the only game that knocks the monitor out?

**Don in the North** · April 14, 2009, 01:09 AM

how do i do those temp checks?

my dxdiag info is as follows

Spoiler Alert, click show to read:

havent tried other games but ill give them a shot later on when i have time

**Mister Sir** · April 14, 2009, 05:14 AM

Well I own a similar system, AMD 64 X2 6000+ with Vista Home Basic 32 and a 9500 GT budget-gamer GPU. The game is buggy as all hell but I don't have the problem on my ancient CRT monitor in my dusty, smoke-filled room

. My neighbor recently had a similar problem with his brand-new $1500 Staples HP rig with showpiece 24'' monitor (mainly used by the kids to download crapware) and sure enough, the tower was tucked into a corner of their dusty room, with no breathing room, fans disabled, burning up - sniffing around you could smell the burning motherboard.

So let's draw up a checklist (I'm an amateur here so you may need to research more)...

1) troubleshoot with another graphically-intensive game...
2) update GPU driver
3) test with another monitor
4) make sure your 8800 GTS' fan is working (if applicable)
5) refer to your BIOS screen for core temperature if the feature is available
6) download RightMark CPU tool to gauge core temperature - http://www.majorgeeks.com/RightMark_...ity_d4454.html
7) check out the internetz: http://en.kioskea.net/forum/affich-3...power-runnning
8) inspect GPU: http://img352.imageshack.us/img352/2...pacitor2ri.jpg leaky capacitator a possible culprit.
9) Keep us updated!

**Don in the North** · April 14, 2009, 05:13 AM

just happened again, only this time i was watching a movie on WMP, the thing lockedup, monitor shut down but this time there was a loud whirring noise, not sure if it was from the speakers or from the case but it stopped when i hit restart.
i checked event viewer, (vista 32) this is what it said under the system log>

The previous system shutdown at 8:04:37 PM on 14/04/2009 was unexpected.

below that is two entries of this

The system detected that network adapter Local Area Connection 7 was connected to the network, and has initiated normal operation.

not sure if these entries are from before the crash or after i hit restart

**Don in the North** · April 14, 2009, 05:33 AM

excellent i appreciate your help , if this leads to a resolution ill give you all the gay sex you can handle, but for now ill give you some rep just for trying.
using nvidia drivers 185.20, seems to be ok and all, using them for a few weeks.
ill try out another game over the next hour or so, ive installed rightmark cpu thingy, gonna monitor that, but what sort of temperature is normal for in-game, so i have a comparison?

**Mister Sir** · April 14, 2009, 06:00 AM

Originally Posted by Don Of Atheos

excellent i appreciate your help , if this leads to a resolution ill give you all the gay sex you can handle, but for now ill give you some rep just for trying.
using nvidia drivers 185.20, seems to be ok and all, using them for a few weeks.
ill try out another game over the next hour or so, ive installed rightmark cpu thingy, gonna monitor that, but what sort of temperature is normal for in-game, so i have a comparison?

Just checked, I have an average temperature of around 55 Celsius per core in the heat of melee battle in the Caucasus. Good luck homie!

**joedreck** · April 14, 2009, 06:40 AM

I had some time ago similar problem. I could do everthing. Play all games I had, but if I play Call to Huarez it's crashed with green, red and whatever screen. I looked for temperature of GPU and saw over 100° celsius. I opend the cooler case and saw the dust, cleaned it and it worked fine with 55° without crash. I had luck, that I can handle this things a little, cause otherwise I must bought a new card.

Be careful if you open the GPU case. If you have garantee, "don't do it". If you don't know what you do, "don't do it".

**l33tl4m3r** · April 14, 2009, 09:14 AM

The GPU shutting down is the only time I have had this happen.
Overclocking my card and running the game would cause this to happen 100% of the time. Get a can of compressed florene and an aftermarket GPU cooler.

The weird wirring noise could be the GPU fan failing. Most stable drivers I have seen are 181.22.

The easy fix is to just take the sides off your case and use a house fan!

Hope it helps.

**Brusilov** · April 14, 2009, 09:36 AM

Yes, it sounds like a graphics card problem. As other have posted give your PC a decent spring clean. I keep my PC under a plastic dust cover when not in use - even an old sheet will be better than nothing.