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Old May 22nd 06, 02:09 AM posted to alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia
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Default My monitor went black in Linux/Debian (X) and text mode earlier today...

About over an hour ago, I was watching a long video (FLV file; not fullscreen) for about 30 minutes in GMPlayer on
my Linux/Debian box (Linux foobar 2.6.14-2-k7 #1 Wed Dec 28 19:14:46 UTC 2005 i686 GNU/Linux) while my
gaming/Windows box was doing SpinRite stuff (so far no errors, but I will resume overnight since it has 8 hours to
go). Then, all the sudden my monitor's picture went black. Monitor said the video signal was still there (not
blinking). Audio from my cheap Sony speakers stopped too. I thought my computer crashed hard, but it wasn't since
I could still ssh into my box from another computer. I even tried ctrl-alt-backsapce to get out of X, but it
didn't work(?). I didn't see any text console (I set to boot to text mode so I have to type startx command). Also,
ps didn't show X and KDE running anymore so either I killed it or it died by itself.

My Windows XP Pro. SP2 (all updates) machine was still showing video and my desktop on the screen since it was
hooked up to an old 4-ports (since the end of 2001) OmniCube KVM switch (VGA and PS/2 ports) with the Linux box. I
looked, checked, and fiddled with the cables for KVM switch and connections to the Linux box. I rebooted the box
via SSH (love text modes!), HDD light was stuck/hung forever (not doing anything like loading or stopping), no
beeps, nothing on screen, etc. No go.

I decided to shut down (via SSH) the machine and power off for a few minutes (shut off power supply unit too).
Again, I looked around for any weirdness like moved my case, unplug, replug, etc. Then, I powered back on, heard a
beep (normal one), saw the bootup on screen, hit a key to stop at GRUB loader before loading Debian, ... and la la
it works again!

Any ideas on what the heck happened or had this problem before? Dang it, I lost my 142 days of uptime. Still did
not beat my 227 days from a few years ago! I hope this weirdness doesn't happen again.

Thank you in advance.


If you couldn't see the BIOS screen, then it absolutely has to be low
level hardware failure. Having experienced a similar failure on an XP
system, my theory is it's voltage related. Some component (whether on
your video card or motherboard) may have "blown" (for whatever that
means) and killed the display temporarily or corrupted the video BIOS to
an extent (pullin' that last one outta' my crack...)


I have had this happen with blown capacitors on a motherboard. It
killed the video, caused hard drives to stall on spin up, and gave a
beep code error for video, and required several reboots to come up. It
recovered, but became unstable and unable to stay powered on for very
long (progressively got worse). I at first mis-diagnosed it as hard
drive failure and did everything but replacing the mobo (PSU, check the
HD's, drivers, etc).


Ack. that's not good. So far, I haven't seen worse yet since the incident
so far.


I have also had video cards killed by brownouts and static electricity.
In the case of a brownout, a temporary dip in voltage destroyed the
card completely. The fan would turn, but nothing would display. I've
since how important regular voltage can be to certain sensitive components.


That's great. Last year, I had one of my computers do that to me when my Enlight UPS stopped working (I heard
it spin down and my system power off) and a horrible odor (no smokes). My friend found out the brown areas on my
old ASUS A7V333 motherboard. It killed my old Quantum 30(?) GB HDD's controller too. I hope this is not happening
again. The problem was that PSU was on the borderline with amount of power (240 watts). See 4/24/2005 and 6/5/2005
on http://alpha.zimage.com/~ant/antfarm/about/toys.html for the details.

Weird thing is that I have these boxes connected to APC UPS' (one was old) and then got a new one to replace it
due to old age (5 years and turning off by itself even if there were no power outages). I thought UPS' were
supopsed to protect these things.

I do hear beeps once in a while due to power hiccups. See my log:
# cat /var/log/apcupsd.events
Tue Oct 04 18:09:48 PDT 2005 apcupsd 3.10.18 (21 July 2005) debian startup succeeded
Tue Oct 04 18:19:20 PDT 2005 apcupsd 3.10.18 (21 July 2005) debian startup succeeded
Wed Oct 05 15:19:57 PDT 2005 Power failure.
Wed Oct 05 15:20:00 PDT 2005 Power is back. UPS running on mains.
Wed Oct 05 15:20:18 PDT 2005 Power failure.
Wed Oct 05 15:20:24 PDT 2005 Running on UPS batteries. -- I think I was testing this one.
Wed Oct 05 15:20:24 PDT 2005 Mains returned. No longer on UPS batteries.
Wed Oct 05 15:20:24 PDT 2005 Power is back. UPS running on mains.
Mon Oct 17 00:54:46 PDT 2005 Power failure.
Mon Oct 17 00:54:52 PDT 2005 Power is back. UPS running on mains.
Mon Oct 17 03:36:30 PDT 2005 Power failure.
Mon Oct 17 03:36:36 PDT 2005 Power is back. UPS running on mains.
Mon Oct 17 11:48:24 PDT 2005 Power failure.
Mon Oct 17 11:48:30 PDT 2005 Power is back. UPS running on mains.
Thu Nov 03 22:55:42 PST 2005 Power failure.
Thu Nov 03 22:55:48 PST 2005 Power is back. UPS running on mains.
Sun Nov 27 13:45:11 PST 2005 Power failure.
Sun Nov 27 13:45:17 PST 2005 Power is back. UPS running on mains.
Mon Nov 28 06:25:27 PST 2005 apcupsd exiting, signal 15
Mon Nov 28 06:25:28 PST 2005 apcupsd shutdown succeeded
Mon Nov 28 06:35:16 PST 2005 apcupsd 3.10.18 (21 July 2005) debian startup succeeded
Tue Nov 29 02:16:15 PST 2005 Power failure.
Tue Nov 29 02:16:21 PST 2005 Power is back. UPS running on mains.
Tue Nov 29 02:16:31 PST 2005 Power failure.
Tue Nov 29 02:16:37 PST 2005 Power is back. UPS running on mains.
Tue Nov 29 02:17:11 PST 2005 Power failure.
Tue Nov 29 02:17:17 PST 2005 Power is back. UPS running on mains.
Sun Dec 11 07:30:59 PST 2005 apcupsd exiting, signal 15
Sun Dec 11 07:30:59 PST 2005 apcupsd shutdown succeeded
Sun Dec 11 17:13:24 PST 2005 apcupsd 3.10.18 (21 July 2005) debian startup succeeded
Sat Dec 17 13:49:27 PST 2005 Power failure.
Sat Dec 17 13:49:33 PST 2005 Power is back. UPS running on mains.
Sat Dec 17 13:49:43 PST 2005 Power failure.
Sat Dec 17 13:49:49 PST 2005 Power is back. UPS running on mains.
Sun Dec 18 16:31:07 PST 2005 apcupsd exiting, signal 15
Sun Dec 18 16:31:07 PST 2005 apcupsd shutdown succeeded
Mon Dec 19 20:42:13 PST 2005 apcupsd 3.10.18 (21 July 2005) debian startup succeeded
Mon Dec 19 21:02:14 PST 2005 apcupsd exiting, signal 15
Mon Dec 19 21:02:14 PST 2005 apcupsd shutdown succeeded
Mon Dec 19 21:15:29 PST 2005 apcupsd 3.10.18 (21 July 2005) debian startup succeeded
Mon Dec 19 21:18:13 PST 2005 apcupsd exiting, signal 15
Mon Dec 19 21:18:13 PST 2005 apcupsd shutdown succeeded
Mon Dec 19 13:25:01 PST 2005 apcupsd 3.10.18 (21 July 2005) debian startup succeeded
Mon Dec 19 13:25:28 PST 2005 apcupsd exiting, signal 15
Mon Dec 19 13:25:28 PST 2005 apcupsd shutdown succeeded
Mon Dec 19 06:43:56 PST 2005 apcupsd 3.10.18 (21 July 2005) debian startup succeeded
Mon Dec 19 06:44:22 PST 2005 apcupsd exiting, signal 15
Mon Dec 19 06:44:22 PST 2005 apcupsd shutdown succeeded
Mon Dec 19 22:49:27 PST 2005 apcupsd 3.10.18 (21 July 2005) debian startup succeeded
Mon Dec 19 23:04:00 PST 2005 apcupsd exiting, signal 15
Mon Dec 19 23:04:00 PST 2005 apcupsd shutdown succeeded
Mon Dec 19 23:06:42 PST 2005 apcupsd 3.10.18 (21 July 2005) debian startup succeeded
Mon Dec 19 23:08:05 PST 2005 apcupsd exiting, signal 15
Mon Dec 19 23:08:05 PST 2005 apcupsd shutdown succeeded
Mon Dec 19 23:09:05 PST 2005 apcupsd 3.10.18 (21 July 2005) debian startup succeeded
Mon Dec 19 23:19:54 PST 2005 apcupsd exiting, signal 15
Mon Dec 19 23:19:54 PST 2005 apcupsd shutdown succeeded
Mon Dec 19 23:21:01 PST 2005 apcupsd 3.10.18 (21 July 2005) debian startup succeeded
Mon Dec 19 23:25:02 PST 2005 apcupsd exiting, signal 15
Mon Dec 19 23:25:02 PST 2005 apcupsd shutdown succeeded
Mon Dec 19 23:59:38 PST 2005 apcupsd 3.10.18 (21 July 2005) debian startup succeeded
Tue Dec 20 00:23:22 PST 2005 apcupsd exiting, signal 15
Tue Dec 20 00:23:22 PST 2005 apcupsd shutdown succeeded
Tue Dec 20 00:24:15 PST 2005 apcupsd 3.10.18 (21 July 2005) debian startup succeeded
Tue Dec 20 15:52:34 PST 2005 apcupsd exiting, signal 15
Tue Dec 20 15:52:34 PST 2005 apcupsd shutdown succeeded
Tue Dec 20 15:53:40 PST 2005 apcupsd 3.10.18 (21 July 2005) debian startup succeeded
Wed Dec 21 21:30:27 PST 2005 apcupsd exiting, signal 15
Wed Dec 21 21:30:27 PST 2005 apcupsd shutdown succeeded
Wed Dec 21 21:31:26 PST 2005 apcupsd 3.10.18 (21 July 2005) debian startup succeeded
Tue Dec 27 16:20:49 PST 2005 apcupsd exiting, signal 15
Tue Dec 27 16:20:49 PST 2005 apcupsd shutdown succeeded
Tue Dec 27 16:20:53 PST 2005 apcupsd 3.10.18 (21 July 2005) debian startup succeeded
Thu Dec 29 20:13:24 PST 2005 apcupsd exiting, signal 15
Thu Dec 29 20:13:24 PST 2005 apcupsd shutdown succeeded
Thu Dec 29 20:14:22 PST 2005 apcupsd 3.10.18 (21 July 2005) debian startup succeeded
Mon Jan 02 08:15:41 PST 2006 Power failure.
Mon Jan 02 08:15:47 PST 2006 Power is back. UPS running on mains.
Mon Jan 02 08:45:00 PST 2006 Power failure.
Mon Jan 02 08:45:06 PST 2006 Power is back. UPS running on mains.
Mon Jan 02 08:45:31 PST 2006 Power failure.
Mon Jan 02 08:45:37 PST 2006 Power is back. UPS running on mains.
Tue Jan 03 21:31:27 PST 2006 Power failure.
Tue Jan 03 21:31:33 PST 2006 Power is back. UPS running on mains.
Mon Jan 09 15:10:48 PST 2006 apcupsd exiting, signal 15
Mon Jan 09 15:10:48 PST 2006 apcupsd shutdown succeeded
Mon Jan 09 15:13:52 PST 2006 apcupsd 3.12.1 (06 January 2006) debian startup succeeded
Wed Jan 11 07:33:05 PST 2006 Power failure.
Wed Jan 11 07:33:08 PST 2006 Power is back. UPS running on mains.
Fri Jan 27 07:09:01 PST 2006 Power failure.
Fri Jan 27 07:09:04 PST 2006 Power is back. UPS running on mains.
Sun Feb 12 22:54:03 PST 2006 Power failure.
Sun Feb 12 22:54:06 PST 2006 Power is back. UPS running on mains.
Mon Feb 13 15:11:54 PST 2006 apcupsd exiting, signal 15
Mon Feb 13 15:11:54 PST 2006 apcupsd shutdown succeeded
Mon Feb 13 15:12:09 PST 2006 apcupsd 3.12.1 (06 January 2006) debian startup succeeded
Thu Feb 16 00:08:22 PST 2006 Power failure.
Thu Feb 16 00:08:25 PST 2006 Power is back. UPS running on mains.
Thu May 11 22:33:50 PDT 2006 Power failure.
Thu May 11 22:33:53 PDT 2006 Power is back. UPS running on mains.
Tue May 16 15:12:27 PDT 2006 Power failure.
Tue May 16 15:12:30 PDT 2006 Power is back. UPS running on mains.
Tue May 16 15:12:56 PDT 2006 Power failure.
Tue May 16 15:12:59 PDT 2006 Power is back. UPS running on mains.
Wed May 17 15:01:42 PDT 2006 apcupsd exiting, signal 15
Wed May 17 15:01:43 PDT 2006 apcupsd shutdown succeeded
Wed May 17 15:04:08 PDT 2006 apcupsd 3.12.3 (26 April 2006) debian startup succeeded
Sun May 21 15:20:52 PDT 2006 apcupsd exiting, signal 15
Sun May 21 15:20:52 PDT 2006 apcupsd shutdown succeeded

[then had to shut down my system via SSH due to weird problems with my blank screen computer]
--
"Be thine enemy an ant, see in him an elephant." --Turkish Proverb
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