Monitor on workstation going black for 5 minutes

[Vincent Farrugia]

Hello,

I've been experiencing problems on the HP 715/100 server we have. The screen is black for 5 minutes... nothing can be pressed on the keyboard to bring it on... then leds 7 and 8 flash, after that, the screen is on again with a beep, but this is only for a split second, then the screen is blank again for 5 minutes. Currently, the workstation is requesting for the login. Heartbeat is ok. I'm a beginner and require help please. What shall I do?

Thanks,
Vince

[Alex Glennie]

Has this always occurred ? If not what changed ?

when the screen is "on for a split second" what do you see - a CDE login panel, an error or startup info or similar ?

What's the O/S ? and do you know if dtlogin or vuelogin are being used to start the xwindows session you are expecting ? ps -ef | grep dtlogin etc ?

Can you also check /var/dt/Xerrors and if running CDE (dtlogin) I'd run the CDE diagnostic tool dr_dt (for vue use dr_vue).

You may also want to try this :
init 2
/usr/bin/X11/X : 0 ? result ?

if you get a grey mesh screen + cross hairs your Xserver works hint : kill it with a then go back to init 3.

[Stefan Farrelly]

I can think of 3 possibilities;

1. Monitor is going bad - try another monitor

2. You are using a non HP workstation monitor, and the monitor you are using is having sync problems to the workstation. Try using an HP monitor or a PC monitor with the correct sync on green capability and correct resolution.

3. Connection to monitor is bad - check cable

4. Hardware problem with graphics card in the workstation. If you can prove this you will need to log a hardware call with HP.

[Vincent Farrugia]

Hi again,

I see a black screen with Console Login: in the bottom. Usually it runs CDE but as I can see, it is in a shell now. It is using HP/UX 11.0 as the operating system.

Once I managed to stop the workstation from doing the blank screen by pressing Ctrl+C. I logged in and tried to run X but, again, the screen blanked and the same story is repeating.

[Stefan Farrelly]

Sounds like a software problem with X/CDE. Has someone changed something recently ? Its going to take some time to sort out. Try a reboot first, you may get lucky and that will sort it out.

[Bill McNAMARA_1]

I would imaging you have changed the monitor recently and not changed the refresh rate..
I've seen this on another product and changing the resolution and refresh rate fixed it.

Of course if you haven't changed the h/w, perhaps you eddited an X*Screens or other Xserver init file recently.

Bill

[Alex Glennie]

I'd still be curious to know what's in /var/dt/Xerrors and dr_dt output since CDE looks like the culprit. and the Xserver test i referred to .

Sounds like CDE's failing to start, waits for a timeout period and then dtlogin.rc retries again.

Try starting X by itself, if it works we can infer CDE has the problem and not X/CDE

[Vincent Farrugia]

Hi,

When I press Ctrl+C and I am logged in, the following message is displayed:

Suspensding Desktop Login
Press Enter for a login prompt
Log in. Desktop login will resume shortly after you log out.

The screen stays on when this message is on.

[Vincent Farrugia]

I think I managed to find the problem.

The servers are down... it was trying to access them but couldn't... and every 5 minutes it was stating so... dr_dt revealed that it couldn't find the server names. Also, Xerror was revealing the same.

[Vincent Farrugia]

Thanks to everyone who helped me... I've assigned each one of you some points.