Re: strange Vista behavior that just started---screen blackouts with no relation to UAC

On Fri, 10 Oct 2008 02:14:50 -0700, Howard Haber <haber@xxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Hi Frenchy:
Thanks for the comments. Yes, I imagine that I have been
pushing my luck on the old video card. At the time I upgraded to Vista
in May, 2007 (long story, don't ask), I upgraded the video card driver
to a vista compatable version (it is dated 10/9/2006) from the NVIDIA
website. I checked that there is not a more recent update (and windows
agrees!). At the time, I was using a 20" Dell monitor (1600 x 1200
resolution) and I never had a problem. When I replaced it with the
current 24" Sun monitor (resolution: 1920 x 1200) in June, 2008,
everything seemed to work fine until a couple of weeks ago. I just
can't figure out what triggered the recent problem. The resolution
seems well within the specs of the video card according to the NVIDIA
online documentation.

When I upgraded to a 22" Samsung, the monitor came with a driver card.
Did yours? Have you used it?

It seems that you may be suggesting that it would be wise to
upgrade the video card. But, I appreciate any other comments that you
can provide.

Thanks,

Howard


Frenchy wrote:

That is a REALLY old low end card driving a 24" Monitor?? You need to
turn off all the eye candy in Vista to run that card on that monitor

It maybe the "latest' drivers are not necessarily the best and you maybe
better to revert to an earlier driver.

Did you let Windows update the video card driver or download from the
NVIDIA web site?

Frenchy


Howard Haber wrote:
Mike--
Thanks for your response. Sadly, it seems that I was unable to
establish any relation between the Logitech and the problem. I removed
the drivers from the startup as you suggested, and I unplugged the
Logitech device that broadcasts to the keyboard and mouse. I plugged
in an ordinary USB (wired) mouse, and rebooted.
The problem still remains, although sometimes it takes a few
minutes to trigger it. To recap, I click on the start menu and hover
with the mouse over the various menu items. Eventually that triggers
the screen blackout, which lasts roughly 5 seconds. This is driving
me nuts. Particularly, when I want to scroll down the list of
programs to find something.
Am I doomed to wiping the disk clean and starting over again
with vista? I do not have the time nor the patience to remove
individual software programs (or drivers) one by one to try to find
the culprit.

--Howard

P.S. My video card is NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 (with the latest vista
driver), and my monitor is (which is a Sun 24.1" LCD Monitor v4)
uses a generic PnP Monitor driver for vista. I installed the monitor
five months ago, so it has been working fine long before this problem
surfaced.



Mike wrote:
Is your logitech software loading at startup? Run msconfig from the
start menu. Click the Startup tab and look for logitech programs.
Uncheck the logitech modules. Click on OK. Then reboot. Your
logitech programs and drivers should not be running now. See if that
isolates the problem to logitech. If so see:
http://www.vistax64.com/drivers/150128-logitech-g7-wireless-mouse-problems.html
, and google for more with "logitech", "wireless", "problem", "hang",
etc. You'll probably find an answer. Also go to the logitech site
and make sure you have the latest software and drivers for your devices.


"Howard Haber" <haber@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:%aGGk.2597$as4.1584@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I have noticed a particularly strange behavior on my windows vista
system (a Dell Optiplex GX270), that just started recently. Here
it is. When I call up the start menu (not the classic style), and
my mouse hovers in that region of the screen for about 10 seconds or
so (whether I am looking through program lists or whatever), the
whole screen will suddenly go dark for about five seconds (for no
apparent reason) and then return to the previous state.

This is of course quite frustrating when I am going through the
program list looking for a particular item. This blackout can occur
a few times before I finally reach my target in the start menu.
This seems to have nothing to do with UAC (which is turned on).
This odd behavior started after I replaced my Dell wired keyboard
and mouse with a wireless keyboard and mouse (Logitech).

In case the latter has something to do with this, I plugged in a
wired USB mouse and removed the wireless mouse from the room.
However, the same problem remained. (Windows update recently
upgraded to Vista SP1, but this was a few weeks ago, so there does
not seem to be any connection.)

I can find no help on the web, and I don't even know where to begin
to troubleshoot this problem.

If anyone out there has any suggestions (short of wiping my disk
clean and starting all over again), I would be most grateful.

Thanks,

Howard

.

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