Tiger Blue Screen Lock-Ups!

electricsoul

Registered
Every now and then, sometimes as frequently as every couple of seconds, my G5/Tiger will freeze up, then fade into a solid blue screen for a period of usually 1-5 seconds, then fade back into my desktop and be useable again.
This just started today.
I did not install any new software or hardware today.
I don't have any strange, hack, or tweak software installed.
I have repaired and verified permissions today.

What the heck is going on, and how do I make it stop?

Thanks,
Mark Mitchell
electricsoul@cox.net
 
don't know if it's the same problem (i am on an eMac 1,25 - panther 10.3.9) but I have been having the same blue screen for a very short period (3-5 seconds) after waking up my mac from sleep. It started after i upgraded to 10.3.8. Maybe not related. Still worth mentioning.
 
Some kind of screensaver you're inadvertantly activating by moving the mouse to a screen corner? Happens to a work colleague all the time, yet she refuses to turn the screensaver off... *sigh*. ;)
 
fryke said:
Some kind of screensaver you're inadvertantly activating by moving the mouse to a screen corner? Happens to a work colleague all the time, yet she refuses to turn the screensaver off... *sigh*. ;)

Probably not, but I will double check it when I get home.
Thanks for the suggestions so far, though.

Mark
 
hasj said:
don't know if it's the same problem (i am on an eMac 1,25 - panther 10.3.9) but I have been having the same blue screen for a very short period (3-5 seconds) after waking up my mac from sleep. It started after i upgraded to 10.3.8. Maybe not related. Still worth mentioning.

Happens to me too. However i think its been happening since 10.3.6. Not sure but its rather weird but it doesn't really bother me.
 
This blue screen behavior could possibly be OS X attempting to change screen resolution or depth. The question is, Is something changing the screen res or depth?

Doug
 
I have an upgraded digital audio and have had this problem only recently on Tiger (10.4.2). As something to add, I don't think the OS "freezes", as I'm able to move my mouse during the time the blue screen fades in and out.

At first it happened maybe once a day and it didn't bother me much, but now it seems to be occurring every 10 or so minutes and I don't believe I've changed anything. Has anyone figured out a solution to this problem? This is driving me nuts.

Jon
 
It _does_ sound a lot like what happens when I add a second display to my PowerBook. Could it be that some video port is dirty and the computer _thinks_ something gets connected? Or a loose video cable that has similar effects?
 
Sounds to me like your computer is changing resolution or the amount of onscreen colours. Alternatively, your video card may be dying.
 
I'm having the exact same described problems.
All of the sudden, the cursor will freeze. Then a moment later, the screen fades to solid blue for about 1 to 10 seconds, then fades back to the desktop and the cursor resumes. Sometimes my machine will go for hours without having it happen, other times it will happen over and over... up to 20 consecutive times. I do not have a screen saver set to activate on hot corners. Also, I've tried closing all running applications and rebooting. Still the problem persists.
 
Well, Fryke, it turned out you were totally right about the video cable thing. I finally noticed that the blue screen was occuring when I bumped the table hard, presumably jostling the video cable. And you also predicted something I didn't say, which was that I have dual monitor setup. I guess that's why you're super moderator...

Screwing the the video cable totally fixed it, and I haven't seen it since. :)

-SJohnson, are you sure the cursor freezes when it goes blue? Next time it goes blue try and move the mouse somewhere to see if the CPU is working during that time.
 
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