The Problem: Sporadically, my second monitor (of two) will freeze. Whatever was on there when the problem struck is still visible, and the cursor is visible on that monitor, but I can't click on anything. Any windows that were on that monitor remain open, but to do anything to them I have to close them and reopen them. They open in the primary monitor (they're still visible in the frozen second monitor, of course)
The System: A 'Pismo' powerbook
400 MHz
576 MB RAM
12 GB Hitatchi internal HD - 2 partitions
40 GB Maxtor Firewire HD - 1 partition - no OS
4x4x24 QPS Que!Fire FireWire CD-RW - mitsumi mechanism
21" MicronPC monitor, set as the primary monitor
3 USB things (Lexmark printer, Belkin keyboard, MS Intellimouse Optical)
Mac OS 9.1 (just for classic)
Mac OS X (this problem has only occured while booted in 9.0.4)
Mac OS 9.0.4 - no serious software installed, just the drivers for the FW hard drive, TaskMenuBar, Toast, Carbonlib 1.2.5, MS IE's extensions...
The Details: I have my 21" monitor set as the main monitor; it is the powerbook monitor that freezes. This problem has happened 3 times. The first two times were overnight sometime. The computer was awake all night with the external monitor turned off. I think the powerbook monitor was left on.
The third time it happened was this morning. I was doing the usual web surfing, and I had a telnet session open. I then turned on the FileSharing Control Panel and its 2 extensions in the Extension Manager and restarted. When I restarted, I started up file sharing, opened the Hotline Server 1.8.5 (don't tell BigRedH.com...) and about 2 seconds later, there was a flicker or something, and the second monitor was frozen. I can't be specific about the flicker, because I don't remember what it was. I just remember that I knew the second monitor had just become frozen again.
While the second monitor is frozen, I can work absolutely normally on just the primary monitor. I notice no decrease in system stability. I can't reproduce the problem (but hey, it's only been 3 times, how could I know what's causing it?). I don't think it was the hotline server, because I don't run it most of the time (I'm 95% sure it was not on either of the first two occurances). I don't even know where to start troubleshooting this, so any input would be greatly appreciated.
what a strange problem....
thanks in advance
-LL
[edit: my carriage returns weren't recognized...]
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[This message has been edited by lucylawless (edited 05-18-2001).]