Laptop screen going blank

[shivvy]

The screen on my laptop has started to go blank for no apparent reason. It has happened 5 or 6 times now and I can't see any pattern in it happening.
When it happens, nothing responds and I'm not able to do anything other than turn it off and start it again. (My usual Ctrl/Alt/Delete doesn't do anything either).

When I say that the screen goes blank, it actually goes blue which is also the colour of my screens wallpaper. So it looks like all the icons have disappeared.

I am up to date with all my antivirus protection.

Can anyone suggest what the problem might be and what I can do to fix it?

[Buenchico]

Check the obvious first:
Overheating can cause laptops to do some very odd things. Make sure that the vents aren't obstructed and, if possible, blast them with compressed air from a can.

Also try restoring your laptop's registry to a date before the problem first occurred. (Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > System Restore).

[ChuckFickens]

First thing I'd do is change the colour of your background so you can see if it's going blue or if it's just closing explorer and leaving you with just your background.

[Buenchico]

As Chuck points out, it could simply be Windows Explorer which is crashing. If so, using System Restore might well fix the problem.

[jabuchanjx]

The blue screen of death is nothing good. What version of Windows are you running? Have you installed any programs? Have you un-installed any programs? If you have installed or un-installed, system restore will most times correct the problem. If I was you, I would back up all works, photos, etc and do a complete re-install as mentioned by methyl. In doing this, it will format your hard drive, rewrite all root and boot sectors and if there are cross files/paths this will fix the problem that caused the errors. Most times the blue screen is when two different programs running in the background or one running in the background and one you are using; try to access the same block of memory. They collide, bouncing back/returning with an invalided answer or command, thus the blue screen comes up, and most times the only thing you can do is hard shut down/restart. Removing the battery and unplugging, this is not good and doing it to many times it will definitely case your system to totally crash the operating software. All answers given are correct and accurate; however, we all need more info from you.

[shivvy]

Thank you all so much for your replies.
Unfortunately something has come up and I will be away from the computer for a while. I will hopefully be back on Friday when I can post all the info you need to help me.

Thanks again.

[shivvy]

Thank for your offers of help earlier this week.
Some of the info you requested is as follows:

The laptop is a Dell Studio 1745
Windows 7 Home Premium
RAM 4.00GB
64-bit Operating System

No error messages appear, the screen suddenly goes completely blue.
I have changed the wallpaper colour (which was also blue) and it still goes blue.
To get it going again I have to turn it off at the main switch on the laptop, an back on again.
Vents aren't obstructed.
I can't remember doing any recent installs or uninstalls.
I haven't done a system restore (I'm not very confident about computer maintenance and gubbins!)

Hope that info might help in diagnosing the problem.

Thanks again.

shivvy

[Buenchico]

I've only just seen your post.

If you've not managed to fix the problem, please try System Restore. (Despite Methyl's scepticism, I've used it to fix countless computer problems).

Simply follow the path given in my post above and select a date (before the problem first arose) to restore your laptop's registry to. It doesn't require any technical wizardry, just a few clicks of your mouse.

Chris

[shivvy]

Thanks for your post Chris but I have had someone have a look at it and fingers crossed it is ok now.
He did rule out it being the blue screen of death thankfully.
Thanks for your previous help though.