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Help me: Second Monitor Freezes
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lucylawless
Mac Elite
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: adrift in a sea of decadent luxury and meaningless sex
Status: Offline
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May 18, 2001, 08:36 PM
 
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).]
blackmail is such an ugly word. I prefer extortion. the X makes it sound cool
     
reader50
Administrator
Join Date: Jun 2000
Location: California
Status: Offline
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May 19, 2001, 04:21 PM
 
Just guessing around...

The closed screen detection switch (or cable going to it if there is one) could be failing. With an external monitor plugged in the Pismo would not go to sleep if it thought the screen were closed, but it should turn the backlight off. Which it obviously did not, you would have noticed.

If this guess were correct, you could try to reproduce it by going mobile some more. See if movement and more screen opening/closing reproduces the problem.
     
   
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