sick laptop

[ben g]

I am having a problem with my laptop (Acer Aspire 5020 about 2 years old). The screen keeps blacking out for anything from a few seconds to minutes or even locking completely until i shut down or close the lid to make it standby. It appears to be working normally whilst the screen is blacked out as i have been doing film scans at the time it happens and when the screen comes back online the scan has completed correctly.
In the past i have had to get the connecting cable from the computer to screen replaced because the screen kept flickering or jumping about. Now it just goes completely black or with a slight white flicker at the bottom.
I am a bit reluctant to take it back to my local repair shop as their prices are a bit high just to look at the thing even before they start to replace anything. Does anybody have any ideas on what may be causing this?
I guess i may just have to bite the bullet and pay for repair or even look to updating it (its getting a bit slow at photoshop, especially with large film scan files).
Any help/advice much appreciated, i'm no computer expert though

 

[GerryD]

check for updated driver/driver installed correctly for all hardware(scanner and graphics card).

When scanning do you leave it scan in batches and leave the PC for a period of time to carry on. If so try removing any screen saver that might be active or do you have power saving enabled, if so disable while scanning

Check cabling if none of the above prob a hardware issue

Sorry can't be of more help

 

[richie]

Hi Ben if this is on vista it could be that you have installed somthing that has changed the vista colour scheme, ive have just changed the colour skin on faststone viewer and i get black screen flashes when i boot up so i have reset faststone and it has sorted it. hope this helps you

sorry doesnt sound like the same problem as mine take no notice of me lol

 

[PsiFox]

How long are the film scans taking to run?

Has the system been cleaned of temp files regularly, if not this can slow down system performance and increase time take.

This could bring it into the time frame where power management takes over.

Check in the control panel and see if various parts of the laptop are set to shut down after a set time and change all of these to "never" and see what happens.

 

[Yv]

Problems with Acer laptops....never heard of that before... well, apart from the problems with mine, my fellas, our service managers....

However, as psi said, definately start be checking the power settings and changing it all to 'never' and then running through the other suggestions already mentioned. Also, if you have access to one, plug it into another monitor [hitting F5 and Fn together twice will turn the other screen on] and see whether that one also goes black at the same time.

To check that cable, the mainboard end is easy, unclip the panel where the power on/off button is, unscrew keyboard and there it is, but never tried to get into the screen end - I know its easy enough on Dells, but not had to try these ones yet....

Trouble is, I wouldnt be sure its worth it, like yours, these are very slow with all the software I run now, and replacement will be happening very soon.

 

[ben g]

check for updated driver/driver installed correctly for all hardware(scanner and graphics card).

When scanning do you leave it scan in batches and leave the PC for a period of time to carry on. If so try removing any screen saver that might be active or do you have power saving enabled, if so disable while scanning

Check cabling if none of the above prob a hardware issue

Sorry can't be of more help

Thanks for trying to help I checked for drivers but had no luck installing them for the ATI graphics card. I do have screen saver + power saving disabled.

Hi Ben if this is on vista it could be that you have installed somthing that has changed the vista colour scheme, ive have just changed the colour skin on faststone viewer and i get black screen flashes when i boot up so i have reset faststone and it has sorted it. hope this helps you

sorry doesnt sound like the same problem as mine take no notice of me lol

Its on XP, but thanks for trying to help.

How long are the film scans taking to run?

Has the system been cleaned of temp files regularly, if not this can slow down system performance and increase time take.

This could bring it into the time frame where power management takes over.

Check in the control panel and see if various parts of the laptop are set to shut down after a set time and change all of these to "never" and see what happens.

Thanks, yes all those things are done.

Problems with Acer laptops....never heard of that before... well, apart from the problems with mine, my fellas, our service managers....

However, as psi said, definately start be checking the power settings and changing it all to 'never' and then running through the other suggestions already mentioned. Also, if you have access to one, plug it into another monitor [hitting F5 and Fn together twice will turn the other screen on] and see whether that one also goes black at the same time.

To check that cable, the mainboard end is easy, unclip the panel where the power on/off button is, unscrew keyboard and there it is, but never tried to get into the screen end - I know its easy enough on Dells, but not had to try these ones yet....

Trouble is, I wouldnt be sure its worth it, like yours, these are very slow with all the software I run now, and replacement will be happening very soon.

Thanks for the detailed reply LL. the other monitor stayed fine whilst the laptop screen went blank.
I had a delve inside and all the cables looked OK from what i could see. I also cleaned all the crap that was blocking the cooling fan for the graphics card.
So far it seems to be working OK after my poking around + cleaning the fan. Fingers crossed it might be alright now.
I will be looking to upgrade soon though and i don't think i will go for acer again. Thanks again all for your help, ben