HELP! Weird false-hanging computer?!?!

Now, is there anyone else who's this has happened?

Sometimes, I'm in the middle of something, anything, can be programming in MSVC, browsing the web, nothing intensive, and then, the app seems to hang, the mouse cursor stops moving, and some seconds later, the screen shuts down, 2 more seconds, it turns itself on again, and it's as if nothing happened, no error anywhere, no reports of any sort, no message box. Nothing!

But the fact is that since a couple of days, it has happened to me like once a day. What could it be?

Toshiba Satellite M40 - Pentium-M Sonoma 1.6ghz - 512mb DDR333 - 60gb 4200rpm - GeForce 6600 128mb - 15.4" BrightView WXGA TFT LCD

 

This could be a heat problem, but usually when the system turns off in this scenario, it doesn't turn back on automatically. There could be a few other possible causes:

1. System ram could be defective, locks when certain section of ram gets accessed, but will reset itself at reboot

2. The OS is the cause. Possibly drivers or corrupt files causing a system lock. But this should normally include a blue screen or some error message, but not always.

3. The systemboard is starting to flake out or there's a short somewhere on the board.

For 1 & 3 of these possible causes, it would require sending the unit in for service. For #2, you may want to try reloading the OS on a spare HDD is you have one, this will resolve any driver or software conflicts, including corrupt files.

Good Luck!

-Vb-

 

thanks for the tips!

but you see, I don't know if you understood my explanation correctly, it's even weirder than that. It's not even a crash or a hang exactly, it's more like a "pause" actually.

Out of nowhere, sometime, the computer stops responding for a couple of seconds, the screen shuts down, 2~3 seconds later, it turns itself back on and it's as if nothing happened. I don't lose data, I have no error messages, I can just continue to use the computer normally. It's that weird.

I know I'm lucky that nothing bad happens, but it's really annoying, and if it's not software related, something worst will eventually happen I guess.

You have a clue what this could be?

As of solutions, I'll probably reinstall soon, that's the first step.

Toshiba Satellite M40 - Pentium-M Sonoma 1.6ghz - 512mb DDR333 - 60gb 4200rpm - GeForce 6600 128mb - 15.4" BrightView WXGA TFT LCD

 

Now that you've explained that a bit further, it does seem to be more of a hardware problem. Most likely the systemboard.

What you can try is booting into safe mode and try using the system in there for a while and see if it freezes, if not, then it's completely software related. If it does, reload the OS to eliminate a software problem. Once eliminated, you'll know it's a hardware issue.

-Vb-