Strange white and blue screen error

[Skooges]

Hi, I was wondering if anyone is willing to help me with a problem I've been having
At seemingly random intervals my monitor blanks out and shows a grid of blue and white pixels
Sort of looks like this <A HREF="http:// http://img236.imageshack.us/img236/3123/screenerror6dw.gif " target="_new">http:// http://img236.imageshack.us/img236/3123/screenerror6dw.gif </A>
Sometimes it will go over to a white screen after that.
Sometimes I can tell that the mouse still moves, and sometimes sound will continue to play.
Nothing fixes it except rebooting
Nothing seems to be overheating, I've monitored that, it seems like everything is getting the right voltage and I've run Norton Antivirus multiple times
Do you think it's a hardware error (video card possibly)?
System uses:
Abit NF7 Mainboard
Geforce 4200 128 meg
Athlon XP 2400
1.5 gig ram at 333 mhz
420 Watt power supply
I can't think of any major software or hardware changes I've done recently.
Thanks in advance for any assistance
-Tim

 

[peartree]

It's either a driver error or, if it really happens at random, it means the monitor is about to drop dead. If it happened in the same situation all the time, then it might be an application software error or a hardware problem with the video card or system RAM.

In any case, the diagnostic is pretty easy: next time it happens, switch monitor power off for about 10 seconds WITHOUT doing ANYTHING else, then switch it back on. If it comes back as a good picture, then it's definitely the monitor. If not, then you'll have to do some video driver updating to see if that helps. If not, then wee're right back to the hardware mentioned above- mobo RAM and video card.

<font color=green>****</font color=green> Never Assume <font color=red>ANYTHING</font color=red> <font color=green>****</font color=green>