Fade to...white??

I have a new machine with Vista Biz. 1GB RAM, P4, 3 GHz, nVidia 256 MB EPCI
video card, SATA HDD. All of a sudden, about once a day the screen slowly
goes white..like the contrast is just gone. Can barely see icons in
background. At the same time, the little circle thingie keeps spinning
where the mouse pointer is and it is locked hard. Have to hold power
button down for 5 sec and hard reboot.

Any ideas?

JOhnS

"HomeR" <me@there.com> wrote in message
news:Xns98FD7EFF1E36Bmetherecom@140.99.99.138...
>I have a new machine with Vista Biz. 1GB RAM, P4, 3 GHz, nVidia 256 MB EPCI
> video card, SATA HDD. All of a sudden, about once a day the screen slowly
> goes white..like the contrast is just gone. Can barely see icons in
> background. At the same time, the little circle thingie keeps spinning
> where the mouse pointer is and it is locked hard. Have to hold power
> button down for 5 sec and hard reboot.

If it's a brand new machine I strongly suggest returning it to the
manufacturer and asking them to fix it. You know, just like you would if a
brand new car started doing the automotive equivilent of this kind of thing.

What program are you running when it happens? Is the program running full
screen? That sounds like what happens when a program quits responding.

--
Kerry Brown
Microsoft MVP - Shell/User
http://www.vistahelp.ca


"HomeR" <me@there.com> wrote in message
news:Xns98FD7EFF1E36Bmetherecom@140.99.99.138...
>I have a new machine with Vista Biz. 1GB RAM, P4, 3 GHz, nVidia 256 MB EPCI
> video card, SATA HDD. All of a sudden, about once a day the screen slowly
> goes white..like the contrast is just gone. Can barely see icons in
> background. At the same time, the little circle thingie keeps spinning
> where the mouse pointer is and it is locked hard. Have to hold power
> button down for 5 sec and hard reboot.
>
> Any ideas?
>
> JOhnS

"Kerry Brown" <kerry@kdbNOSPAMsys-tems.c*a*m> wrote in
news:uGqtjenbHHA.1296@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl:

> What program are you running when it happens? Is the program running
> full screen? That sounds like what happens when a program quits
> responding.

Well, as usual I forgot to add something. It seems that it only does
this when I am running my Hauppage 950 TV, USB tuner. I think. I will
have to do some experiments when I get back to work Monday and see. Like
most intermittant issues, this may take a while. I will add more info to
this thred as time goes on. As far as returning the machine, I may have
to do that but since it is extremely important to my daily job, that will
be my last resort.

JohnS

Let us know. It sounds like an incompatible program taking up most of the
CPU time. Look for errors in the event logs.

--
Kerry Brown
Microsoft MVP - Shell/User
http://www.vistahelp.ca


"HomeR" <me@there.com> wrote in message
news:Xns98FDD5B728803metherecom@140.99.99.138...
> "Kerry Brown" <kerry@kdbNOSPAMsys-tems.c*a*m> wrote in
> news:uGqtjenbHHA.1296@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl:
>
>> What program are you running when it happens? Is the program running
>> full screen? That sounds like what happens when a program quits
>> responding.
>
> Well, as usual I forgot to add something. It seems that it only does
> this when I am running my Hauppage 950 TV, USB tuner. I think. I will
> have to do some experiments when I get back to work Monday and see. Like
> most intermittant issues, this may take a while. I will add more info to
> this thred as time goes on. As far as returning the machine, I may have
> to do that but since it is extremely important to my daily job, that will
> be my last resort.
>
> JohnS

"Kerry Brown" <kerry@kdbNOSPAMsys-tems.c*a*m> wrote in
news:#fOR9AqbHHA.1388@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl:

> Let us know. It sounds like an incompatible program taking up most of
> the CPU time. Look for errors in the event logs.
>
Well, better late than never. Had to run several programs in XP emulation
mode. Cured 90% of the issues.

JohnS