Hi,

This has been happening for quite awhile. At first it only happened every once in awhile...but now it happens much more often. At times, I'll just be browsing/listening to music/chatting...whatever...and my monitor will flicker to a white screen. Sometimes it only stays on for a second...other times it stays on for about 10 or 15 seconds. At first I thought maybe I just misconfigured something or installed the wrong drivers for linux, but this happens in Linux AND windows. I'm thinking it's a hardware failure of some sort. I have a NVIDIA Geforce4 MX...and a flat panel dell monitor. So what I'm asking is, has anyone ever heard of this issue, and do you think it's my monitor or my video card?

Is there some sort of program that I can diagnose a problem?

It's doing this over and over now...actually right now, so I'm probably going to log off for awhile.

Thanks.

-RoaCh

Sounds like a hardware problem!

Cheapest approach is to try an new video card - any old video card (working naturally) - use for a while doing mundane things, just to get some viewing time. If your problem doesn't appear I would then suspect the monitor it'self - which is what I suspect in the first place. If it's a CRT monitor, then it's probably the 'jug' itself developing internal electrode shorts - junk it.

You might check your monitor cable. I had a problem where everything was turning PINK at unpredictable times, and for several seconds, and then going back to normal colors.

I was all set for an expensive trip to the monitor-repair shop, when I found, after a lot of Google searching, the same problem another user had solved by finding a BENT PIN in the monitor connector. I looked and sure enough there was one bent pin. I straightened it out and no more problem. I didn't even have to buy a new cable!

I had this problem too, it turned out to be a bad video card.

Hey...I checked the cable and noticed that it just wasn't fitting in very well. Anyway, a few of the pins were actually a bit crooked...I straightened them out and plugged it back in, and tightened it..and it feels like it's in much more tightly. That was a few hours ago and no white screens yet, so I'll see!

Thanks for the suggestions.

I'll bet your problem is solved. The pins in that kind of connector are REALLY easy to bend; just hit the socket a little wrong fumbling in the back of the computer (I assume others fumble, I do all the time...) and it's a possibility.

Another thing that can happen is for a connector wire within the cable to get slightly damaged by the cable being bent too sharply for some reason.

Just so you all know, that was a sign up a dying monitor. It totally died..white screen would never go away. Not sure what caused it..but I purchased a new one!

Thanks for the followup RoaCh Of DisCor. It's always appreciated when folks close out their threads with a final update. Congrats on solving the problem -- J.W.