Recent BLACK (Lock-up) Screens on BOTH PC's

Here I go again (and this is getting old) - seems the more I "learn", the more problems I have ...

Recently (past couple of days), for reasons totally unbeknownst to me, both of the PC's I "attempt" to "maintain" (or "administer" - HAH! that's a joke!) are going to a BLACK SCREEN (of death??) on occasion (so far, for no seeming rhyme or reason?) when I am switching between tabs or programs, etc. - the remedy for which has only been to IMPROPERLY SHUT-DOWN THE MACHINES (pressing/holding the power button down for four seconds).

Moving/clicking the mouse does nothing, Ctrl/Alt/Delete doesn't work - and nothing happens (as has always been the case) - when I press the "Esc" key.

Where might I start to try and diagnose THIS one please?

Thanks in advance as usual,
g ...
PS - These PC's are NOT networked, and are in two different towns approximately 150 miles apart ... and have different ISP's.

 

Without actually sitting down at the PCs, it's hard to really provide a course of action. But if 2 totally separated PCs are doing more or less the same thing, you should take a look at what you've done to each PC in recent days/weeks that is more or less the same. Did you recently install the same program(s) on each? Was there a virus infection on each? A driver update? Windows updates? New hardware? You could try a system restore on one PC to a date when you know there was no problems. If it works with one PC, try it on the 2nd....

 

Thanks for the reply.

There have for sure been MS/Windows updates on both machines in the past week or so, however, one PC is running XP/SP3, and the other is Vista (SP1, I think?) - so that most likely would not be the cause - correct?

I did also add "Tiny Speller" (Tiny "Spell"?) to each during this same time period - though thinking that it was such a small program that surely, that couldn't be the culprit - could it??

I'll uninstall it ("TS") from one machine first and see how that goes. I'll post-back with any results - positive o negative.

Thanks again,
g ...

 

Ok, after 24 or so hours of observation, it seems that the removal/elimination of "Tiny Spell(er"?) has solved this problem - at least on the PC running XP. Won't know about the PC running Vista for several days until I get back to that PC - and yes, these two PC's do mirror a great number of programs ...

Really gonna miss it until it works for me - I LOVE SMALL PROGS that are beneficial - and the smaller, and more beneficial - the better - for this wannabe geek.

Thanks ...