Hello, I seem to have a problem, and hopefully you can help! This problem has come to being in the last couple of months. I have not installed any new hardware or anything like that. The problem that happens is when I try to run, lets say, Heros of Might and Magic 5 Tribs of the east, the computer just puts my monitor on power save mode (black screen). I can still hear stuff not related to the game (IE: music i was listinging to in the background, msn). Odd part is I can run the other expansion for the game just fine, as well as other games. This problem doesn't just happen from games eather, if I try and update a driver, it happens, if I try running DOS BOX it happens. Compy specs: AMD Dual core 3.01 GHz 3 GB Ram ATI Radeon 2600 Hell this even happens when I try windows updater! I can still run 90% of my comp, but jeez its annoying. Thanks!, Paume

Paume, SWAG, sounds sorta like a memory issue to me. You have plenty of memory. It just sounds to me like you have too many things trying to use it at once and overwhelming your memory manager. Take a look at your 'startup menu' in your control panel and see if you can trim it. Find a list of 'musts' @: http://www.castlecops.com/startup_c... or http://www.sysinfo.org/startuplist.php or http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/sta... Once that's done, consider your 'temp' files. Cleaned 'em lately? Another common ailment is a file called 'index.dat'. It's like a log file and keeps a record of every site you visit on the web. Empty, it's 32K, but it can grow HUGE. It's a protected file and can't be deleted by normal methods. CCleaner (free @: http://www.ccleaner.com/) can get rid of it (not to worry, it gets rebuilt EMPTY on the next boot.). HTH. Ed in Texas.

Much thanks for the reply! I did what you said, but sadly it is still there, waiting to annoy me. But on the plus side I cleaned up my computer! I (without telling him) "borrowed" a gig of ram from my roomie just now to put in and see if that helps at all, but sadly at 4 gigs still have the problem. My task manager (CTRL-ALT-DEL) really isnt listing anything using up much space at all. Oddest part with this problem is it is very random with what it wants to mess with. For example I can run X3 Terran conflict on nearly full tilt graphics and no problems there, but if I try and run a game with lesser ram useage Black screen. Hell when I was removing programs, one of the programs when I went to uninstall it gave me black screen. Jeez! -Paume