Screen randomly goes to solid color. Virus?

[JKingDev]

I know two users who have this problem, and google searching only revealed one more in this thread:
/vb/topic90163.html
(I can't post links)
This is kind of a double post, but I am not the OP of that thread and I thought this topic might be better served here.

The problem is that these two users are reporting that every once in a while the screen will go to a random solid color and the only way to make it go away is to hold down the power button and shut off the machine. These are two different kinds of computers, so I doubt that it is something simple like a display driver, which is why I suspect malware. I analyzed the hijackthis logs of both computers and found nothing. One of the computers, I removed the zonebac trojan from it a while ago. Besides that it looks clean. I've run scans with symantec and AVG and found nothing. I ran rootkit revealer, and it found a bunch of items in the temporary internet items folder hidden from windows api. They were mostly jpg's. There were a couple javascripts, but I don't think a *.js is capable of installing a rootkit. There were no dlls or exes. I would like to believe that I am kinda good at eliminating malware, but this one's just stumped me. Has anyone else ever seen this behavior?

 

[Bobbye]

two users+two different kinds of computers> screen will go to a random solid color.

So you have two users on two different machines having the same display problem? Are they using the same monitor? If this is the case, then it sounds like either the monitor or the graphics card have gone bad.

Check the in the Device Manager- Expand both the Display adapter and monitor -look for the error icon-yellow triangle+black exclamation mark.

 

[JKingDev]

No. Two completely isolated cases. Both laptops though different brands not hooked up to ext monitors. Perhaps it would still be silly to overlook possible driver/hardware issues. If it is something like that, would I be likely to find any clues in the event viewer? I havent really used it much before. What kind of entries would I look for?

 

[Bobbye]

Okay, so we eliminated a single monitor. The Event Viewer has three logs-System, Application and Security. There you will find a listing of everything that has taken please. There are Information Events, Warning Events and Error Events in System & Apps. You would be looking for an Error that occurred at the same time the monitor changed

Follow this path:
Control Panel Administrative Tools> Event Viewer> Click on System & Apps, one at a time on the left> look for Errors on the right> right click error> Properties> note description of error, Event# and Source.

There is a "copy" button below the up/down arrows. Click that, then go to any place that allows you to type (ie. notepad, wordpad, this board) and you can paste (use CTRL-V) the entire event details there. It makes for easy reporting of the event.

If you want to paste the Event here, you do not need to include the lines of code that follow the Description- but paste all else. You will be looking for Error that occurs at the time of the problem. Please ignore Warnings.

Did you check the Device Manager as I mentioned on each computer?

 

[JKingDev]

I have not checked the device manager yet, and I will do so. I'll also try to see if there are any error events, but that depends on those users remembering a specific time when it happens, as it doesnt occur with great frequency. Thanks for the suggestions. Ill let you know what I find.

 

[Bobbye]

Just have the users glance at their watch when the screen goes to the random color. If there are Errors in the Event Viewer, there won't be any problem finding them! I am very puzzled by two different computers with two different users are having the same problem-"unless" they have the same "bad" graphics card!

 

[JT909]

The driver nv4_disp for the display device \Device\Video0 got stuck in an infinite loop. This usually indicates a problem with the device itself or with the device driver programming the hardware incorrectly. Please check with your hardware device vendor for any driver updates.

Hey guys, I think I have their exact same error. As of now, I can rule out that it was a malware issue. This started to occur about 1-2 weeks after building the computer. Being that Palit is my provider, I have a better chance of walking up to them from Ohio to California then to attempt calling their bogus number. I did buy from Tiger Direct, so an exchange is still an option. The error occurs very randomly, random color as well, although it's been pink for most times recently. This is from that log you mentioned, C+Ped over here. If you think I should download drivers from the nvidia, maybe I will do that, because the vid card was relatively new, so I a can't doubt that it's not some hardware issue, although it only started to occur 1-2 weeks into having it, and as of heat, it always runs around 50-60C.

 

[Bobbye]

For both of you, following the finding and posting the the Error in the Event Viewer would give the information necessary to begin looking for the cause of the programs. A pink screen is new to me- black or blue are the most common but with the additional info from the Event Viewer, we can begin the troubleshooting for each. Remember, you will be looking to find the error(s) that correspond to the screen change.

 

[JT909]

I did post the error, right above my post.