[DESKTOP] Screen completely blanks to black - sometimes occasionally, and sometimes often

[dfgrbac]

I originally entered this problem on Kubuntu 22.04 Jellyfish. After I saw a notice that Kubuntu 24.04 was available, I upgraded to Noble Numbat to see if it would fix this problem. It made no difference on this blanking screen problem.

Note: It does usually not matter what I am doing, but there seems to be some connection with content. Today I got a momentary blank screen a few seconds after logging in - before touching anything. Then the system was fine for a while.

Then later I stated reading email and browsing using Proton and Brave. I remember seeing random blanks once or twice. Then as I started reading an email from RFK Jr's teamkennedy.com, the screen blanked, then blanked again, and then started rapid blanking without moving the cursor at all. Needless to say, this is really annoying.

Is anyone else seeing this? Has malware snuck into the system.

[jlittle]

On a desktop it may be a cable issue. Back in the VGA days I'd have considered it likely, but it's worth a check that the cable is connected securely.

On a laptop there can be a hinge issue.

[dfgrbac]

It's still happening! Just this morning (9/14/24) I tried to check system settings, and when the pointer hovered over "Settings" the screen blanked out. Then started to blank out for longer periods, all without touching the mouse.

Another new development the last two days is the time is not getting set. It is 4 hours behind from New York. When I try to set it, the message says it can't be set. But the funny thing is, when I set Greenland as the location it again says it can't be set, and when I APPLY anyway it sets "Greenland" to my correct New York time.

This is really messed up. What is going on?