I am not exactly new to linux but this problem is making me feel like it. I have a Dell studioxps 8100, I7 2.86 quad core 64 bit, 8 gig memory, radeon hd 5770 1 gig, acer 22" monitor max resolution 1680 x 1050 60 hz refresh rate I believe. I dual boot windows 10 and used to be current versions of Fedora. I first started having a problem while playing minecraft on fedora. At random times, from after hours of play to just a couple of minutes, my monitor would go to sleep and I couldn't do anything but hold the power button and restart my computer. After a while I attempted to change to ubuntu just to see if that changed anything. At first it worked just fine but had the same problem when playing minecraft. Shortly though it began to not even boot completely without the monitor shutting off. Now it will not even make it through an install attempt without the monitor shutting off. Even trying to install slackware, I made it to the point where I logged in as root and it went to sleep. I have no problems at all when running windows. I have ran a couple of videocard stress tests on windows and had no problems. I don't know where else to look.

Hi...

Welcome to the forum

I'm not sure about the other distributions but for Ubuntu, you can see if the information here or here helps.

If you want to disable this feature entirely, you can try the solution here, although the information is old and may or may not work.

Regards...

Thank you very much for replying to my post and welcoming me to the forums.

I do not believe any of the links you supplied were relevant to my situation as I can not boot into anything past grub on the Ubuntu I have installed currently and attempting to install any distro from cd causes aforementioned sleepiness regardless of how active I am clicking or typing.

You're welcome

From what you wrote above, I didn't realize your problem was that severe. Does the solution here help? The procedure seems to be confirmed here and here. You can also look through my Google search here.

Regards...

1 members found this post helpful.

When in Grub, press e to edit the kernel commandline and add this optionto it. The symptoms you describe usually occur when the video driver is not able to determine the correct resolution and/or refresh rate for your monitor, so it helps to specify those manually.

Alright so while attempting to edit the kernel parameters on grub boot screen,and while I was using an arrow key to get to the right location, it goes to sleep on me.

With the randomness and increasing frequency of this, and the fact that it started happening on Fedora, which I had installed and used for quite some time before this started occurring I feel that it is hardware related. However, since I have experienced no problems while using Windows, it also seems somehow Linux related. I fail to find the connection.

The only thing I would know to suggest at this point would either be to borrow or use another monitor that works long enough to make the needed configuration changes and see if that helps or purchase a new monitor that works.

Regards...

Open the case, make sure that the fan on the videocard is spinning and the cooling system is free of dust (and hairs, if you have a pet), this sounds like an overheating problem to me.

1 members found this post helpful.

Hi...

The OP mentioned that the monitor works fine in Windows. If this was an overheating issue, wouldn't both be equally affected?

Regards...

It depends. Windows is loading the video drivers pretty early and with that the card can enter low-power states early. That the problem is getting worse over time also indicates that this is a hardware error, and from my experience this seems to be a problem with heat.

Again thanks to everyone that is offering their advice.

Since this issue originally started while playing a game, my first thought was overheating graphics card. I have verified that fans are working. On Windows, I have ran video card stress tests that have displayed temperature and fan speeds with no issues.

Which leaves the suggestion to try a different monitor. That is not feasible at this time.

Do I need to close this thread until I am able to acquire another monitor?

Hi...

I'm guessing it would be ok for you to leave it open until you can find out if another monitor will solve this issue but TobiSGD or another moderator would have the answer.

Regards...

Thank you for the explanation, I wasn't aware of this aspect.

Regards...

I doubt that it is the monitor, since it seems to run fine on Windows, but you can of course try, sometimes electronics is just weird.
Regarding this thread, you can't close it anyways (on LQ threads only get closed in rare circumstances), you could only mark it as solved, which it is at this time not. Just leave it as it is and come back to it when you have further information.

Further information:

Windows 10 had an update that needed to reboot to install. After reboot, while on the update install screen with the big progress circle, the monitor went to sleep. The activity light is still active and update is still installing. It is a multi-stage update that is supposed to restart the computer a few times during install. When it arrives at a point that it is supposed to reboot, it beeps at me in a 4 or 5 pause 4 or 5 pattern. When I turn it back on, the update continues, yet the monitor shuts back off after a little bit. As of writing this, update is still installing in this pattern. The last view I had of progress showed 76 percent.

This no longer seems just related to my hardware and Linux.
I greatly appreciate everyone's helpfulness so far on this matter.

Weird. Why does percent sign not show up in text?