Screen randomly goes black

So a quick update: I installed anti-virus software and the problem seems to be gone... for now. I was concerned per your comment that it could be a hardware issue. The system was opened up once: I changed the storage disc because this computer came with an HD that was very slow, I upgraded it to an SSD, but that was years ago.

When I do get a black screen, I can wake the computer up and see the screen as normal with a touch of the spacebar. But when the problem happens, it may go black again after a minute. Would that still be a logic board issue?

@nicholasromanin - Without testing as I described above there is no way to isolate the issue as being Eire a display or logic board issue.

I’m not sure how an antivirus app would have changed things here. Because it prevented your system going into sleep mode?

Dan,

I tested it, and when the screen goes black, a flashlight does not reveal a faint desktop. My current thought is that the computer is overheating and entering a sleep mode. When I turn it back on with a spacebar, its as if it had been sleeping and I am at my Lock Screen, so I know that more is happening than just the screen going dark. The unit feels quite warm, and if I let it cool for a bit, the problem goes away. I am not sure how to resolve this though; perhaps a fan has failed, or there is dust accumulation somewhere? I am not sure yet.

Thank you for your comments, they are helpful, any further advice would be greatly appreciated.

Nicholas

@nicholasromanin - OK, that might be a good clue! I think you need to run the onboard diagnostics to see if any errors pop. If not the we need to monitor the systems thermals using a good monitoring app like TG Pro see if the thermals are running high. Post a snapshot of the main window making sure you get all of the sensors as the list is long!

Dan, I followed your advice, and there was no indication of any sort of error in the diagnostic test. I followed up by purchasing TG Pro, and just now I saw the temp spike on the Power Supply Secondary Heatsink. It would fluctuate massively, sometimes going down to the base level of 35 C, sometimes shooting up past 110 C. I manually raised the RPM of the fan, and that prevented a shutdown. I also had the activity monitor active while I had the TG Pro on. The power supply was shooting up in temp while using Zoom, which showed a consistent Energy Impact in the 40's. After I shut zoom down, the power supply temp went down.

Not sure if I should re-install zoom or what, but it is consistent with the past; I've seen the over heating happen almost exclusively while using zoom. The trouble is that I've used zoom on this computer for years, not sure why it is a problem now. Maybe it is a problem with the updated version of zoom.