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#1 2009-12-20 18:45:59

ctarwater
Member
Registered: 2009-02-05
Posts: 300

Screen goes blank (red, gray, black, or green) System unresponsive

Here's the short of it - while watching videos on my htpc the screen (my tv) goes blank.  No icons, no anything except a solid color.  Sometimes it's green. Sometimes black, grey, or reddish.

This happens multiple times a day.  Pressing keys on the keyboard or remote do nothing.  Only a hard reboot solves the problem.

I'm using an usus M3N78-EM mobo (if it matters)
Running a fully updated arch, openbox, and am using "nvidia" drivers and libvdpau for my onboard graphics.
XBMC is my primary media player when it occurs but the problem has happened when the only thing running was openbox and a terminal.
None of my logs seem to show anything and the only xbmc log I have is days old so the problem doesn't seem to create an xbmc log.

The screen is still on and the hard drives are still spinning but I'm unable to access the shared folders on the htpc (I can't login in to the ktorrent web interface hosted on the htpc either) so it seems like the machine is off?

It almost seems like it's trying to hibernate or something. 

Any ideas or suggestions are appreciated.

*edit*
It just happened for the first time ever while listening to music via xbmc.  My guess is it's either a driver issue or a setting in xorg.conf

Here's my current xorg file: http://pastebin.ca/1721741

Last edited by ctarwater (2009-12-20 22:16:16)

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#2 2009-12-23 15:24:02

ctarwater
Member
Registered: 2009-02-05
Posts: 300

Re: Screen goes blank (red, gray, black, or green) System unresponsive

I replaced my TV with my desktop pc's monitor for a bit and it still happened, so I can eliminate the tv as the issue.

It started happening a lot more in the past few day.  Still nothing in the logs.  The last time it happened I wasn't running anything on it except my base openbox install and xterm installing vlc.

I'm hoping it's just some settings in xorg but this is my first time using an nvidia card so I'm not sure what could be causing it.

Anyone have any troubleshooting ideas?

(up next is installing a video card and testing with that instead of the onboard graphics)

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#3 2009-12-23 19:17:58

lestoil
Member
Registered: 2005-08-09
Posts: 81

Re: Screen goes blank (red, gray, black, or green) System unresponsive

I would suggest google your mob and linux, check out the arch beginner's guide and wiki for any pertinent entries. Unfortunately the wiki has little to say about hdmi except "not tested/should work".
That mob's onboard nvidia chip should use the driver you are using.  You may want to check nvidia-settings, if you have that program. Sorry not familiar with XBMC.
You don't say which video output you use. Any differences noted depending on output? Are the "monitor" specs correct in xorg.conf? Is DPMS setup for monitor?
/var/log/Xorg.0.log would be the place to check.
Good luck.

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#4 2009-12-23 19:35:51

ctarwater
Member
Registered: 2009-02-05
Posts: 300

Re: Screen goes blank (red, gray, black, or green) System unresponsive

Thanks.

I actually updated the bios (for the second time).  It seems that mebbe the first one was corrupt or something because so far it's been 2-3 hours of music and no issues.

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