Black screen of death?

[Me myself & him]

This just started last weekend. I'm pretty sure it's not the monitor because I tried two different ones and I still get the same thing.

Everything seems normal when I boot up, I see the information on the screen up until the Winxp logo, but after that, it
seems like the computer powers down. (Just like when I've
left it alone for about ten minutes) I hear a click, the screen goes black, and the LED on the monitor starts blinking. Nothing after that, I can't get it to do anthing at all... except
shut down.

I suspect I may have inadvertantly changed the color scheme to black or something. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[MBP2112]

Howyadoin,

If the LED on the monitor is flashing, the video is shut off. Either the system is going to sleep, or powering off. Have you tried Safe Mode? Hit F8 repeatedly while the system is starting up, and boot to Safe Mode. If that works, check your power options in Control Panel, perhaps the system is somehow set to go to sleep immediately. I've never heard of a virus/trojan that would do this, but it's feasible.

-Mark P.

 

[johnhoe]

Does the system shut down only after trying to go into Winxp? Does it momentarily give a blue screen (even for a fraction of a second)?
That click might indicate a harddrive failure. Ive seen a fault that sounds similar. Sorry about that!!

 

[Me myself & him]

F8 worked!

I started it in safe mode and I had an option to restart it in the last known mode that worked. I found a bitmap file that I had never seen before just sitting on the desktop. Once I deleted it, everything worked fine again, I was able to start it up in normal mode. I'll run a virus scan to be sure.

Thanks