BleepingComputer.com: Black screen every ten mins.

Have XP Pro SP3. My screen goes black every ten mins, I have to use space bar for it to come
back. Could it be PCHealth asking for collection of data? Have no clue, can you help pls

If it seems to be exactly every ten minutes of inactivity (no mouse or no keyboard input), then I would check the Power Settings.

Click Start, Settings, Control Panel, Power Options and check the Turn off monitor (and other) settings.

If it is exactly ten minutes and set to After 10 mintues, change it to After 20 minutes or Never and see if that makes a difference.

Also right click some empty place on the desktop, Properties, Screen Save - what is that time set to?

Adjust as needed!

This post has been edited by joseibarra: 13 July 2009 - 07:38 PM

Maybe I have not been clear. Every 10 min the screen goes back, and I click on the space bar and everythng come back ok. Dont HP Health gather information? bt dont know at what time interval, and how to delete the Data Collection Tks for your reply

Let's work on one problem at a time.

First:

Did you check the screen saver and power options to see why your screen goes black, what did you discover, did you make any adjustments?


Second:

You mentioned PCHealth before and now you mention HP Health and I am not sure what that means.

I can research it some if you tell me exactly what it is that you think is running and why you think it is collecting data.

Thanks for yor reply. First the settings were 30 mins each. Now they are set at "never".
Second: sorry I meant PC Health, which by nature is collecting data, and from I read every 10 mins intervals. But I cant delete this folder: "it might be used by someone". Some MVP just gets rid of PC Health alltogether!!!. Your thought?

If I might interject...
Picolo, I know that PC Health is related to Windows Help and Support Center, but I had never heard of it collecting data and running at 10 minute intervals. However, with a little research I found that Windows ME has a PC Health Client Scheduling Application that does that. But according to my research this only exists in ME, not XP. So PC Health should not have any relationship to your problem. Scroll down some to the relevant section here:
http://www.answersthatwork.com/Tasklist_pages/tasklist_p.htm

The following link gives some more info on it:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/166573-48-health-scheduler

So please don't try to delete any PC Health folder--besides being "in use" Windows File Protection probably wouldn't let you anyway. Even if you could it would more likely cause problems and won't help resolve your issue.

This sounds to me more like a hardware problem, but it could be just about anything. Are your video card drivers up to date? We will need more information from you to be able to troubleshoot the issue. Give us some more specs on your computer. Is your video card onboard and if not, what kind is it? How many Watts is your power supply? Did you buy your PC from a store with Windows pre-installed and if so what make and model is it and how old?

Also, as joseibarra has alluded to, are you sure it is every ten minutes exactly? I.E., are you timing it or is that your estimate? Are you using the computer when the screen goes blank or has it been idle? You mention that the screen comes back if you hit the space bar--is it just the space bar or will other keys or the mouse click also do the job?