screen keeps going black

no and how would i do that?

Either the manufacturer of your computer (HP, Dell, etc) or, better yet, the manufacturer of your graphics card (nVidia, ATI, Intel, VIA, etc.) if you know it. Do a search for the respective model number and download/install the driver package from the executable they provide.

Hope this helps,
John

now its gotten worse - evey few minutes it goes black and makes a weired sound (like the sound when you plug in a usb)and then the screen gets all messed up and then goes back to normal

Using the same method and ask yourself how old the monitor is and how much punishment it's received. That sound could represent a bad driver or a monitor going bad, so I would try to rule the first one out.

John

but its a laptop - what should ido about the screen/monitor?

Sounds like to me that Vista keeps trying to find a driver for your graphics adapter. The Aero interface in Vista uses DirectX, so it's not like XP where you could get by using some stock generic drivers and never really notice the difference if you didn't play games.

I'm not quite as ready to panic as John about it, but still probably best that you track down and install all the necessary drivers. Don't just stop with the video drivers, make sure to get motherboard/chipset drivers, sound card drivers, drivers for any other devices that may be in your computer like a card reader, etc. If it's a name brand system (i.e. Dell, HP, Compaq, Gateway) then you can generally do one stop shopping at their website for all the latest drivers. Otherwise, there are a number of driver download services... A couple of them will let you pay a small one-time fee to scan your system and then download/install the latest drivers. So unless you find you're formatting your system multiple times a year, probably not worth paying some annual subscription fee for any of those places.

if i understand correctly - i should download the 3 downloads that are avaiable from intel ( i put in my product number "Mobile Intel

theres only 1 download ( the other 2 were just older versions)

For some reason I read USB and thought 3.5mm audio, so I went down the road of they fuzzy, scratching sound that comes through the speakers rather than the standard device connection/driver search tune. After rereading I agree with Jimmy, though even if you reformat often there are plenty of free driver backup applications available to save the time or cost of the alternatives.

John

"there are plenty of free driver backup applications available to save the time or cost of the alternatives."

would you be able to direct me as to where ican get them?

Thanks!

I find it's easier to just burn a CD with the installation programs for the drivers or put them onto a USB flash drive, etc. That way you can easily update them with newer versions down the road.

The one I use is no longer free, but DriverMax is one of the top rated freeware options, while Net-runna is a newer contender with promise.

Hope this helps,
John