Black screen displays suddenly after 2 - 4 hours

Support & Help Requests Hardware
,
#1

After 2 - 4 hours my laptops starts showing me black screen when when I click somewhere. This has happened many times and it happens only when my laptop is awake for a long time and a lots of tabs are open. (Firefox and multiple terminals in diverse workspaces) I do suspend it for 5 or 10 minutes by closing its lid. This problem happens more when more than one terminals are open.

Also i had not changed any graphics card.

Machine info:

  • Acer Aspire 5742

  • Intel Core i3-370M

  • 4 GB ram

  • Intel HD graphics

  • Triple boot (Ubuntu Mate 16.04, CentOS 7, Windows 7)

i am new to this site,so please forgive if i made any mistakes.

#2

@smit_patil, welcome and don’t worry too much about form, people here seem more interested in the substance of things than how they’re gussied-up.

I think there are things unsaid that need to be known in order to shoot the problem.

  1. Does it do this if you never snap the lid shut to suspend it?

  2. Are you using the MATE user interface or have you installed something else on top of the Ubuntu-MATE base, LXDE or XFCE or anything? IOW are you running a bone-stock Ubuntu-MATE install, or have you tweaked it up somehow? Are you using the default compositor?

None of the hardware info you’ve listed gives me any clues, others may see more.

I had a problem with cairo-dock under debian-jessie that was kind of similar, every once in a while it would crash and i’d find myself looking at the login screen. I remember seeing similar issues back when Unity was new but that’s years ago and i think it had to do with Mir or Wayland whichever it was.

  1. When the screen goes black, is it possible to recover from it? How do you do that, logout, reboot, big-red-switch, other?

  2. Item 4 is the important one, exactly what makes it happen? You said “when i click somewhere”, can you add specifics? Always the same app for example?

  3. You said “more than one terminals” and you said “when I click” so i’m thinking you don’t mean more than one login, you meed more than one workspace?

Sorry to make more work for you instead of less, but debugging needs clues. :sunglasses::+1:

1 Like
#3

thanks a lot for reply

answers to you questions.

  1. i didn’t experience it,cause i shut the lid always for 2-3 to 10 to 15 minutes.

2)I had installed clean Ubuntu mate from Ubuntu-mate’s official website and didn’t install any other desktop environment.

  1. I don’t think so, I press esc,atr+clr+del,alt+ctr+t(to open terminal and type xkill)…ect but these didn’t work so I hard-boot my laptop removing its battery(i don’t wait for long ,but next time i will).

  2. and 5)I there are more than one terminals are open in several workspace and Firefox too.i use all 4 workspace.i think black screen shows off when i click the mouse.not the same app,but i can tell you that it mostly happen when i click mouse button(in some cases it happens without any contact to mouse).and yes, in some terminals i login as a root by command su(so i dont have to type sudo every time)

there approximately 2 or 3 hours passed now and i think it will soon show me the black screen.

thanks again for you reply.please reply me again,i’ll be waiting.

#4

re 3) have you tried “shutdown -r” from within a terminal to reboot? That might provide some more information, whether it just hangs, issues messages, etc.

re 4) it smells like the problem i was having with cairo-dock on debian-jessie, are you running other unusual apps that are messing with screen-painting? Maybe one of them hangs due to specifics of screen resolution etc.

When all else fails, check the logs. If you can remember where they are.

#5

Thanks again for reply,

  1. i cant open terminal when black screen shows off,i just try to do it.

4)well,i had customized my the them so much that one will fails to tell that it is Ubuntu mate.and no,i don’t use any app like that

what are log? how can i check them?can you please tell me in deep ?

sorry for you valuable time.
waiting for your reply…

#6

Sorry, we’ve reached the limits of my knowledge on this particular topic, maybe someone else has some ideas.

#7

Ok,never mind,I’ll appreciate that you tried to help me.
thanks.

#8

I don’t why this was happening but after installing new kernel(As told by askubuntu),I don’t experience this problem since last 3 days.I my current kernel is 4.10.0-22-generic and old one was 4.8.0-53-generic.

but now i had a new problem,every time when i upgrade my OS the old kernel gets install automatically.I have to remove it again by sudo apt autoremove

#9

[quote=“smit_patil, post:8, topic:13615”]but now i had a new problem,every time when i upgrade my OS the old kernel gets install automatically.I have to remove it again by sudo apt autoremove[/quote]I only just now dropped into this thread, not having read all of it so forgive me if I missed something but how did you install the new kernel?

If you did so manually, you can just remove the meta package for the Linux Ubuntu kernel and it will prevent the update process from installing the old one.

sudo apt-get purge --autoremove linux-generic

However, only do this if you indeed installed 4.10.x manually. We don’t want you ending up without any kernel at all. :wink:

#10

Thanks for replying

I had installed the new kernel this way.(please see my own Answer).So what should I do Next?

#11

[quote=“smit_patil, post:10, topic:13615”]So what should I do Next?[/quote]What you did is basically a manual install of a specific kernel version. So, what I suggested should work just fine – removing the kernel meta package. See my earlier post:

#12

Help me the problem is getting worst!!!Please Go here for more details https://askubuntu.com/questions/922705/black-screen-shows-off-suddenly-after-2-4-hours

#13

Boot up with the Ubuntu Install DVD/USB. And just leave it idling. We’re not reinstalling. We’re just seeing if it is something about your installation or something about Ubuntu on your machine.

If it still happens this badly even with the Ubuntu install DVD/USB, I would say there is a hardware problem.

1 Like
#14

From the askubuntu page where you supplied more information, you posted several things that indicate overheating.

it happens only when my laptop is awake for a long time and a lots of tabs are open. (Firefox and multiple terminals in diverse workspaces) I do suspend it for 5 or 10 minutes by closing its lid. This problem happens more when multiple terminals are open. Also fans of the laptop makes so much loud

Fans making noise indicates an overheating issue.

Also now it is getting worst and it shows me black screen after 15 or 20 minutes.I have found so many logs in /var/log which mentions time when black screen shows off,but they are too many i didn’t understand them.I don’t think that it my screen problem as when black screen shows off,The song in my headphone Also stops playing!!

The June 17 answer by Jones0610 on that page also suggests overheating, and that “you are just running more processes than your laptop is capable of handling.”

In any case, I suggest that you have the laptop heatsink examined for an insufficient thermal paste condition - the cpu may be overheating due to a physical condition, not necessarily a software issue. Good luck smit_patil.

#15

I had already reinstalled it!! But nothing has happens yet!!But i will still check from live usb.

WARNING **: Failed to get pixmap in /var/log/syslog
#18

Now i think i had found something in /var/log/syslog again!! Please take a look at it.

Jul 2 23:15:04 smit-Aspire-5742 org.blueman.Mechanism[917]: Failed to connect to Mir: Failed to connect to server socket: No such file or directory
Jul 2 23:15:04 smit-Aspire-5742 org.blueman.Mechanism[917]: Unable to init server: Could not connect: Connection refused
Jul 2 23:15:04 smit-Aspire-5742 org.blueman.Mechanism[917]: Failed to connect to Mir: Failed to connect to server socket: No such file or directory
Jul 2 23:15:04 smit-Aspire-5742 org.blueman.Mechanism[917]: Unable to init server: Could not connect: Connection refused
Jul 2 23:15:04 smit-Aspire-5742 blueman-mechanism: Starting blueman-mechanism
Jul 2 23:15:04 smit-Aspire-5742 dbus[917]: [system] Successfully activated service ‘org.blueman.Mechanism’
Jul 2 23:15:04 smit-Aspire-5742 org.blueman.Mechanism[917]: (blueman-mechanism:2058): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_icon_theme_get_for_screen: assertion ‘GDK_IS_SCREEN (screen)’ failed

#19

Hi guys.I am Using Linux mint XFCE :imp: since last one month and I am not getting this Problem.Also I had found something exact similar to this in my /var/log/syslog,But I was so annoyed :worried:that I shift on Linux Mint XFCE. Thus I thing that it is not my laptop problem.I want to switch over Ubuntu mate :heart_eyes:again but I don’t want this problem again.:slight_smile: