Intermittent Black Screen

Hi I am having an occasional problem where my PC screen goes black for a second or two. This seems to have no discernable pattern and the PC does not reboot etc. The screen always comes back to the place I was at. Connections etc seem OK. In the scheme of things this is not an earth-shattering problem but if there is a problem brewing I would like to nick it in the bud. I am not particularly savvy about technical matters . Could it be a driver issue? Any advice appreciated. Windows XP SP3 with Radeon 4500 card. Thanks Nelclaret

First suggestion would be to either try your monitor on another system to see if it happens there and if so then it would most likely be the monitor is failing. The other suggestion if the above is not capable is to try a different monitor on your system. If it doesn't happen then the issue is your monitor. If it does then we would need to check your video card first.

stupid question maybe but does it only go black if you leave the pc for a while but as soon as you move your mouse it comes back? if yes then it's probably nothing more than your screen saver, and that can be switched off so the monitor always stays on your desktop, or you can choose a pretty picture/animation instead of just having a black screen saver. if no then it could well be failing hardware, pc or monitor, and i don't think there is anything you can do to "nip it in the bud" really. of course you'd have to rule out a software problem with your video driver, so would need to uninstall the one your using and install the latest version for your card, but apart from that i can't really think of anything that may fix your problem, i'm sure rshaffer61 will run through a thorough trouble shooting process with you before coming to any conclusions, this is just my initial thoughts.