Screen goes blank on different systems, OS, Programs

[wintermute33]

I am a tech for a company that deals in point of sale software for cafeterias. Recently and inexplicably, one of our districts had systems in two locations that would go black screen. Monitor light is on, all power settings are set to never and only a reboot brings the system back on. I appears as if the problem only occurs during operation of the sales software. I made sure all updates and patches were applied. The district has several cafeterias but only two are having the problem. The software is MSSQL based. I would normally think this would be strictly in the software, except that we just got a call from another district having the same problem. But they are using a different sales software, Older windows version, different hardware, but exact same problem. None are hooked into the internet and each are servers with one or more slave systems. Specs below

District 1:
Celeron 2.4, 512 meg ddr, integrated p4m266a video, winxp pro sp2, MSSQL

District 2
Celeron 1.7, 128 meg, integrated SIS 961 video, Win 98 se.

 

[SOcRatEs]

Hello! Welcome to TechSpot!

Wow!
Delicate situation!
Being the one common thing in both districts is "integrated video"
I would suggest a search for the latest chipset drivers.
It may be as simple as a bad api call not being handled.

Are these touch screens?

 

[wintermute33]

Reply to Socrates

Thanks for the reply. Yes each are integrated video, but drivers are updated. If drivers were the issue, I would have many more systems with this problem. The monitors are touchscreens, we use ELO and Microtouch(serial on com1), but I don't think the problem is in the monitor. I am going out to replace RAM, thinking this may be the problem, or at least eliminate it as a possibility. It could be that the problems are just similar but unrelated, also.

Any other ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Semper Ubi, Sub Ubi

 

[SOcRatEs]

If you would be able to collect any mini dumps, this
may help in diagnosis.
Let us know how the ram replacement goes.
We'd be happy to help where we can.

G'Luck

 

[wintermute33]

Continuing saga of the black screen

Hey,

Got the one system to work with new memory (the Win98 system). But the XP system didn't correct with new ram. I went into the event viewer and got an interesting but inconclusive error, which I am hoping someone may be able to help with...

ParVdm
PAR_CANT_FIND_PORT_DRIVER
Unable to get device object pointer for port object

The MS explain leads me to believe that it may be a serial or parallel port.

I have 5 systems with the same error. They lock up at various times, some days more than other. Each system has an expansion card with 2 serial ports and an unusable parallel port. The brand is NETMOS. Each serial is configured as 3 and 4 and the para port is 3. Com 1 and LPT 1 are set for the integrated ports.

We have these cards in hundreds of other systems and while we have had a number of problems with them, the issues have always been apparent on install.

I appreciate the help.

Thanks.

 

[Babbler]

Did you ever solve this? We have a workstation with Microtouch touchmask and are having the same problem on one of our PCs

Unlikely to get reply I realise as this thread is more than 2 years old but here's hoping!