Hate to sound ignorant, but have a problem i just cannot seem to fix and it is driving me batty.

Recently had a hard drive die, so replaced it with 160BG Seagate SATA drive. Got it installed, got Windows XP SP2 up and running and now i am getting some very random, intermittent issues. Havent been able to pinpoint a cause but here is what is happening. I can be doing anything, surfing the net, reading email, playing a game , whatever, and my monitor goes black. I can't do anything, no ALT+Tab out, no ESC, nothing. The power light on the monitor goes from solid green to blinking, PC is still running, it doesnt reboot, just nothing. Turning the monitor off and on doesnt do anything, degauss nothing. I end up having to turn the power off and on, and it boots up just fine.

I have checked the event log and not really found anything pertinent other than a true vector thing, but i think that is connected somehow to Zone Alarm and i have never used it.

My original guess was some sort of Video Card issues (Radeon 9600 XT), have installed the most recent drivers, still happens, removed those and used the drivers that came with the card, still happened. ]

I am at my wits end, if any of you more technologically gifted individuals could recommend something, i would greatly appreciate it.

If you need more info, just let me know and i will get it.

Thanks in advance

How old is the monitor?

When this happens and the monitor LED blinks green what is the status of the transformer LED? Is it also blinking?

I would say there is a good chance that the monitor or transformer is failing.

Monitor is close to 5 years old, give or take. Not too sure what the transformer LED is, clue me in and as soon as it happens again, ill take a look see.

I should have noticed the degauss reference.

I was assuming a flat panel LCD. My bad.

Anyway they all have transformer boxes between the plug and monitor.

Do you have another monitor to try?

That i don't, however, after browsing through these forums while at work, i foudn some great advice, tips, tricks to keep me occupied, the best being not allowing Windows to just restart, instead forcing the blue screen. Now i am getting BSOD's when it happens. BloodyATI and their bloody crap drivers. Seems video card was getting tossed into an infinite loop and the was an issue with ATI2DVAG file. I went in to the CPU to AGP controller adn changed the settings to PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge and rebooted. It remains to be seen if that worked or not, getting ready to stress my system a bit and see if it blows up

Let us know how it goes!