Black screen

[Aurara]

OK, this has been happening very often and i'm kind of worried it might be the computer's hard drive...the problem is whenever i am on my pc the screen goes black, and any music i have stops playing. The little button that turns the monitor on is usually but turns orange like its on stand-by, and the tower still says the computer is on. When this occurs i cannot get back to a regular screen and i have to turn it off from the switch that controls the power for the comp(not the tower but i think you know what i mean) after this, sometimes it will say "a certain file is corrupt or missing(it said a file name, but i couldn't write it down fast enough)
So i was just wondering, anyone know what the problem could be?

[Isiolia]

Is there any consistency in when this happens? As in, does it happen after a few minutes no matter what, if the machine goes to screen save/power save, when you run certain applications, etc?

The file being corrupt/missing could be the cause of the hanging, or it could just be a file that's getting corrupted due to the hanging/restarting.

[Shuemue]

What can you hear when it happens?

Are fans still running? Is the HD still accessing stuff? HD light flickering at all?

[Spekkio]

could even be as simple as a bad power supply. i had that happen to me a bit ago. computer booted OK, but as soon as i logged into ffxi and i got past char select screen, monitor would go to standby, PC stopped taking inputs and such, but ffxi music kept playing. after freaking out and thinking my video card was toast, i think to try swapping in a spare PSU i had lying around and presto, works.

i'd back up my files if i were you as a just in case defense if it IS your hdd, but there's a lot more places to check before we assume your disk is toasted.

[Aurara]

No, music stops completely. I called dell and they said it was due to my memory chip thingies being in wrong, so i jiggled them around and put them in "properly" and don't seem to have any problems atm. The problem was very random though, it just happens out of nowhere sometimes. Im gonna get my mom to pick up an external hardrive to put my shit on just in case.
Edit: Shue i can hear the fans and everything
Edit2:its happaned in the past, but its never been this bad tillyesterday.

[Shuemue]

Could very easily have been something as simple as a loose stick of ram, hope it stays fixed. Come back if it happens again of course¬

[Aurara]

well, i think it might have been a loose memory chip thingy, 'cause they both did look pretty loose when i took them out/back in(took em almost an hour to get them both back in lol)

[Spekkio]

well, i think it might have been a loose memory chip thingy, 'cause they both did look pretty loose when i took them out/back in(took em almost an hour to get them both back in lol)

on the sides of the slots, there should be two little arms that close up when you insert the chips. make sure they grip the little C shaped cuts into the sides of the chips. if they're clipped on like that, you're probably well seated. if not, they could very well be lose and causing "bad stuff" to happen.