Black screen, nothing working

[sag]

Hi All,
I'm running 8.10 on my laptop (a rebadged Clevo M57RU) Intel 7250 @ 2.0GHz, 4G RAM, nVidia 9800 graphics.
I've recently had a couple of complete 'black-outs' where the screen goes completely black, and no key combinations (or mouse clicks) revive it. My only option has been to shut down with the power button, which I hate to do.
It first happened (twice) when installing the update to ClamAV, then when that had managed to finish updating, it appeared to be OK. Then it happened again while I was trying out Blender.
Anyone got any ideas, or should I just not bother trying to run Blender?
Thanks
Sag

[Jakey_TheSnake]

Does it do it every time you try to use Blender, or just once?

Also, why do you have antivirus? :l (assuming that's what AV stands for)

[sag]

Its done it twice in blender so far, after about 8 to 10 mins.
I'm running ClamAV because it has been drummed into me as a Windows user that I should!! ;)
Sag

[Jakey_TheSnake]

You _really_ don't need it, it's just a waste of space ;)

I'm guessing you have desktop effects enabled, right? Right-click on desktop > Change Desktop Background > Visual Effects. Try changing to none and see if it does it.

[presence1960]

Its done it twice in blender so far, after about 8 to 10 mins.
I'm running ClamAV because it has been drummed into me as a Windows user that I should!! ;)
Sag

march to the beat of a different drum, read this : http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=510812

[sag]

You _really_ don't need it, it's just a waste of space ;)

I'm guessing you have desktop effects enabled, right? Right-click on desktop > Change Desktop Background > Visual Effects. Try changing to none and see if it does it.

ClamAV is now uninstalled, and I had already disabled some (not all) of the desktop effects. I have now disabled all of them, and Blender seems to be OK. So far with no black-outs. If I re-enable the effects one at a time and can point the finger at a specific effect that causes a problem, what should I do??
Sag

[ranch hand]

I think that you should be lookng at your system log to see what has been going on.

You have plenty of ram.

What is your CPU usage like with the effects running?

I am not really up on them as my box is too new and my ATI card does not have a driver yet. I could get one and compile it but the effects don't really interest me.

Still I think that you should not be having problems with them.

With 4G ram are you running 64bit?