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Black Screen (W7 64) - hardware test OK
Hi,
Barely computer literate, so please be gentle.
Not even sure if this is the correct forum, so mods please excuse and feel free to move to the proper one.
ISSUE:
Just experienced a "black screen"/blank screen display for 3rd time since purchasing this system ~2 months ago.
1st time:~ 4 weeks ago MS Office 2007 SP2 (legal, patched) was open and there was an open document. Stepped away for ~45 min and returned to a black display. Had to hard boot from reset button on tower.
2nd time: 10 days ago, system idle (not even browser was open), except for OEM McAfee Security Center and email client running in background.
3rd time: 1 hour ago, system idle.
Each time this happens, there is no cursor or mouse - just a black display.
Have to hard boot from the power button on the tower each time.
No problem rebooting.
W7 is OEM. No new recent hardware or software. Everything is fully patched. BIOS is current and drivers are the most current offered by the computer maker (though there is a newer video card driver at the ATI site, it has not been tested/made available by Dell). I practice scrupulous computer "hygiene" and the system is not infected. I do not game or use P2P.
My "custom" power plan (designed to keep USB power to my UPS & allow scheduled tasks, such as AV scans to run) is: screensaver on after 10 min, display off after 30 min, computer sleep = never.
I know how to open the W7 events viewer, but have no idea how to interpret what I find.
THUS FAR:
1st time it happened, spent many hours w/"premium" Dell TS (w/remote assist) to no avail, though they did say it was a "known" issue with Windows 7 (esp 64 bit) - something about "Ready Boot" or "prefetch" or other "memory-related" issues.
They insisted on an EXTENDED hardware test (not just the brief "mem test"). With my large HDD, it took >24 hours, but all hardware components checked out fine.
This seemed to isolate the issue to "software" (OS or GPU drivers?).
No further episodes until ~10 days ago, and then today.
There is no BSOD and no stop code. Just a black screen. There *is* info in the logs in the event viewer, but I do not know what any of it means.
Without the Windows debugging tools and someone who can read the dump files, I don't know how to dig deeply to find out what the problem is or what the solution might be.
I see a LOT of threads out at the MS forums and elsewhere, but have found no real solution. The folks at Dell TS seem to be aware of the issue, but are unable to help w/solutions (aside from punting me to MS or telling me to uninstall/reinstall the OS!).
This *does* seem to be a "Windows" issue, esp 7, esp 64-bit.
Can anyone please, please help?
This computer was a very expensive, robust replacement for a Vista 32 system and I am really disappointed and frustrated.
Thanks very, very much in advance,