MB screen suddenly turns off?!!?

[Josias]

I was trying off different screensavers (the RSS thingy), and suddenly I press "2" to check some news, and my screen goes black. Not entirely black, just like FrontRow without icons-black. I try to move around the mouse. Nothing happens. I open FrontRow, and hear the sounds, but the screen remains black. I had to do a force reboot, for the first time on any mac I ever tried/saw. This is incredible, my screen simply didn't respond. Has anyone ever tried this before? On a laptop screen or external monitor?

 

[codo]

As a Windows/Mac user this wouldn’t worry me in the slightest. What scares you about having to force a reboot? It happens sometimes, a bit of buggy code, nothing is fool proof. I wouldn’t worry about it as it presumably works now?

Maybe because I still use Windows daily I’m desensitized to the odd crash - who knows? It doesn’t "shock" me.

 

[HexMonkey]

What was your screen brightness before this happened? Perhaps you accidentally hit F1 instead of 2, which would cause it to decrease the brightness. If you were on the minimum usable brightness (1 bar), this would have made the screen essentially black (it's not completely black, but depending on the lighting you can't see anything unless you look really carefully).

 

[benthewraith]

I was trying off different screensavers (the RSS thingy), and suddenly I press "2" to check some news, and my screen goes black. Not entirely black, just like FrontRow without icons-black. I try to move around the mouse. Nothing happens. I open FrontRow, and hear the sounds, but the screen remains black. I had to do a force reboot, for the first time on any mac I ever tried/saw. This is incredible, my screen simply didn't respond. Has anyone ever tried this before? On a laptop screen or external monitor?

I know on Windows one of the F keys transfers what's on the LCD display to an external monitor. So it's possible you accidentally hit the Mac equivalent, though I wouldn't know what that would be.

As said, it could have just been you hit F1 instead and dimed it all the way. But the fact that it came back perhaps indicates the former instead.

 

[kingcrowing]

Well is it all working ok now at least? I hate when random stuff like that happens without explination, but if it works fine again, then at least its fixed now, hopefully

 

[count chocula]

nothing like that has happened to me on my macbook.

 

[Josias]

1: Screen was on max brightness, and yes, I did hit "2".
2: There is no F-key in Mac that suddenly sends everytihng to an external monitor. F1 and F2 are brightness down and up. F3, F4 and F5 are sound off, down and up. F6 is "numlock", F7 is.... sh*t... F8-F12 are Dashboard/Expose functions. Maybe I pressed F7?

Well, it works now, and hasn't happened again, so it's allright.