Black screen of death? XPS M140

Help! My new XPS M140 has crashed about 4 times in the last couple of days...

For no reason, the screen suddenly goes black, and the only way I can get the computer working again is to turn it off (have to hold down the power button for a good 5-10 secs) and then back on again. This seems to happen randomly.

No errors come up on the screen, the computer isn't hot, and the only programs I have installed are McAffee, OpenOffice, WinSCP, and putty. (I re-formatted a couple of weeks ago). I also have Linux (on a separate partition, of course), but it isn't working at this point.

Any ideas? I know that I should call Dell, but I really do not have the time this week...

Edit: something new - this morning my computer re-started itself twice...

 

are you sure it's a "crash" and not the system simply going into hibernate or standby according to the settings in the power options?

 

yup, it's a crash...

i have to actually turn the computer off, and then turn it back on. (after which it boots up normally)

 

yeah, but that isn't an indication that it's crashed. there's plenty of posts about people having problems coming out of stanby.

what makes you say it's crashed?

 

i'm a newbie, so if my computer is nonresponsive i say "crashed"

i changed the settings to presentation mode, so that the computer shouldn't go into standby or hibernate, and it *still* did it!
screensaver came on, then a few minutes later the screen went black...

 

and you have hibernation turned off?

 

i think so... i changed the power settings so that the computer would never enter hibernate.
(shouldn't standby either, since i have it on presentation mode)

thanks for helping!

 

ok, then we can assume that is it not standby or hibernate doing it.

lemme ask you these questions...

1. how old is the notebook?
2. have you reformated?
3. have you uninstalled bloatware?
4. have you made any software changes (add or remove programs)?
5. have you made any hardware changes?
6. how long has the problem been going on?
7. have you made any changes to your computing habits (new room, new power strip, etc.)?

 

This happens to my E1505 every once in a while, all you gotta do is close the screen and open it back up again - and it should turn right back on

 

Same thing with the e1705. Turn off. Turn on. Problem goes away. This happens very rarely as well (if that means anything).

 

1. about 3 weeks
2. sure did
3. sort of... i did the re-format, but installed all of the original applications (so i have stuff like QuickSet)
4. I've installed McAfee (subscription), OpenOffice, WinSCP, puTTY, and Cisco Systems VPN client
5. No
6. i think it first did it a week ago (?), but it seems to have gotten worse...it did it about 5 times, just today.
7. well, i did take it to the library the other day... seemed like an innocent visit.

thanks!

(i know some people have said that it happens occasionally to them, but i've had it happen 5 times just today - makes the computer basically unusable, especially since it shuts down without saving anything)

 

hmmm

i think at this point, i would get dell to send you a replacement unit. you can communicate via phone/email/chat to get the process rolling depending on your time contraints.

do it sooner than later unless you figure out the fix/problem in the

EDIT:

i seem to recall someone else a while ago having a similar problem with a client running on top of XP. is the Cisco vpn client for work? you may want to try to google and see if there are any conflicts. just a guess, but maybe worth a look.