Vista will not return after screen saver

[edpatterson]

Sigh, what an incredible piece of crap.

HP Pavilion db6000
2 gig ram
160 gig hdd
Windows Vista Home Premium

The screen goes black after moving the mouse if any of the stock screen savers come up for more than 1 minute. As in all I get is a black screen with a white pointer.

Power settings are to never hibernate.

I was able to get back to the desktop when it first started by loading msconfig and turning off all startup items that were not from Microsoft. Now that doesn't help.

It has only been 3 months since my last reinstall.

All installed software is legit, vista is activated, anti-virus is current.

Ed

 

[smah]

My first guess would be to make sure that the video card drivers are updated. Does event viewer give any clues about what is happening?

Additionally, it might be worthwile to determine if the system is still actually running correctly (other than console display) - perhaps install VNC and see if you can connect to it remotely when this happens. Or even create a shared folder and see if you can use that from a remote system.

 

[linney]

What does it do if you load Safe Mode?

Besides the Event Viewer, are there any errors in the Device Manager?

 

[kmills]

Ed,
My vista ultimate only likes to wake up if I hit the shift key.

 

[kmills]

Ed,
Sorry about that, I meant the space bar.

 

[edpatterson]

All drivers are current, I can type the gettysburg address and still only get the black screen.

I never saw the sense in loading in safe mode when holding the power button until it dies then selecting normal works.

I have to admit I am not a Vista fan, it is worse than the Millennium Edition was and it was crap.

 

[linney]

Safe Mode is a valuable diagnostic tool in its' own right, it takes it a bit further than MsConfig in that it gives you a clue as to if it might be a driver problem. Also forcible powerdowns are never a good thing for a machine to put up with as they can lead to both file corruption and even hardware problems.

So if it works in Safe Mode then it may be a driver problem.

The hard drive manufacturer will have free diagnostic software to thoroughly check the condition of the hard drive.

Checking for RAM errors is worthwhile too. You can use the Vista memory checker tool or a third party one.

http://www.memtest86.com/

http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

Have you tried with a different Mouse and Keyboard to see if that makes any difference?

If you use the Preview button on a Photos ScreenSaver do you still see the same behavior in Preview?