screen flashing to black every several seconds

[Claude Jones]

David Curry wrote:

> Claude Jones wrote:
>
>> For no explainable reason, my graphic interface has gone crazy. It 
>> flashes to black for a moment everal several seconds. Nothing else 
>> seems to be affected. If I'm typing, words keep getting put in the 
>> doc. Downloads continue, etc... I loaded some of the latest 
>> patches/updates last night. Apart from that this machine was idle all 
>> day. It's up on the net with Firestarter providing pretty strict 
>> rules. I just tried downloading/installing the latest ATI Radeon 9200 
>> video driver from ATI. I searched the list for similar behavior, but 
>> couldn't find anything. What could have changed in my absence??? Have 
>> I been hacked by someone?
>>
> Claude, have you tried switching to a console window to see if the 
> periodic flash to black occurs there as well?  Try ALT-F2 to see if 
> the blackout continues and then ALT-F& to switch back to your X window.
>
> Have you recently applied X.org updates to your system?
>
Console is stable. X.org was updated by yum update two nights ago.

-- 
Claude Jones
Bluemont, VA, USA