OT: Very strange computer crash

[Renegade 13]

I was busy playing a game on my new computer, and suddenly the monitor just shut down on me. It was as if it wasn't receiving any input from the CPU. All cables were snug, I hadn't touched anything other than the mouse and keyboard recently, and the computer hadn't shut down or anything. But the monitor acted like sleep mode had been activated, only nothing I could do brought it out of it. Clicking the mouse, pressing escape, backspace, alt-ctrl-del, nothing worked. So I had to shut down the computer, then restart. After that, the monitor has been working just fine. But I unfortunately lost a large list of items I had been compiling and hadn't saved (of course!) and it was simply quite confusing.

Has anyone encountered something like this before, or have any suggestion as to what may have caused it? Computer specs are below:

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ processor
1 GB RAM
Windows XP Home SP2
BFG nVidia 6600 GT OC video card
17" CRT monitor (nothing special about it)
Other associated peripherals (keyboard, mouse, speakers, printer, etc.)

[NullAshton]

Um, I think that may have been a problem with the graphics card. Sometimes in Battlefront, with my old car, the card would just shut down for no reason. ATI, having the software it does, reset my card and everything was good. You might also want to try checking the tempuature right after intense usage of the card...

On a side note, I have the exact same card as you. Huh.

[Renegade 13]

I too was thinking it might have been a video card related problem, but I doubt temperature has anything to do with it. I checked it's temp right after the shutdown and restart, and it was something like 60 degrees, so that shouldn't be too bad, should it?

[ToddT]

This maybe a long shot, but years ago when i got a new comp a game i played would blank out and the only key on the keyboard that brought the screen back was the tab key which was used to switch to the game map. turned out the game and the power saving features on the machine did not talk to each other causing the comp to kill the monitor, unles that one key was pressed. i don't run many games these days so wouldn't know if that is still an issue.

[Thermodyne]

What was the Game? It's probably the source of your problem.

[Renegade 13]

I'm not sure if I can say what game it was. But I've updated the drivers for my video card (thought they were already up to date, but I guess not), and haven't had the problem again. So hopefully the out of date drivers was the problem. Stupid of me, should have checked that first thing.

[Baron Munchausen]

Aaaiiiiieeee!!!

I've been plagued by this for years. And I have dramatically different hardware. My video card is a Matrox G450 and I thought it was some quirk of the MB that I have (Asus A7V133) interacting with it. The only solutions I have found are 1) To wait for the time usually needed to trigger the deactivate monitor timer in Windows. I.E. stop using the machine completely for 20 minutes or more. Then when you touch a key the 'reactivation' happens as it should. Or 2) Keep pressing Alt-F4/Ctrl-F4 and 'enter' or 'Alt-O' (for 'OK') to make everything running shut down. Eventually you get to Windows itself and when the system reboots the video comes back.

The possibility that this annoying problem is a general problem with computers is really scary. At least it doesn't happen very often.