Screen Goes Dark, Computer Still On

I have a Dell Inspiron 1525, running Vista home premium 32 bit. I've had this laptop for about 3 years, and for the past month or two, the screen will at times go blank (for instance, if the laptop has been unplugged), yet the laptop itself remains on. The problem is sometimes I can't get the screen to come back on, even though the laptop is still on and running. The only thing I seem to be able to do to get the screen back is to turn off the laptop by pushing and holding down the power button, forcing a shutdown. When I reboot, I get a message saying that Windows did not shut down properly, and have the option of entering safe mode or starting Windows normally. I select start Windows normally, and everything seems to be more or less OK, until sooner or later this same screen issue happens again of course. Any idea what's going on here and how to correct it? I've recently done a bunch of maintenance on the computer (cleaning the registry, clearing up some hard drive space by deleting a bunch of larger files, etc. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Lance

Before you did this " cleaning the registry " thing, did you make a restore pt. ? And can you go back to it and see if you still have this issue ?

Actually, cleaning the registry is what I did to try to fix the screen issue, that didn't cause it.

Check in device manager for monitor driver being updated, but, it sounds as if the monitor might be going bad if you just lose the whole screen, with no error messages when this happens.

Welcome
Try and SFC to test the OS
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/66978-system-files-sfc-command.html

If no errors are found try another user account.

If errors are found, run 2 more times. If errors are not fixed, post and we will set you up with a repair install.
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/88236-repair-install-vista.html

Thanks Richard, I just searched to update the driver in device manager and apparently the driver is up to date for my generic PnP monitor. Anything else can try?

richc46 said:

Welcome
Try and SFC to test the OS
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/66978-system-files-sfc-command.html

If no errors are found try another user account.

If errors are found, run 2 more times. If errors are not fixed, post and we will set you up with a repair install.
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/88236-repair-install-vista.html

Click to expand...

Yes several suggestions, above

Thanks again, I don't have the Vista installation DVD with me at the moment, but will try using that when I've got it.