Here's the situation. It usually takes me 3 or 4 tries before my system actually comes all the way on. When I power it on it goes thru everything and then when the OS(vista ultimate) is about to start the screen goes blank. Everything is still on though. Power supply is running, USB mouse/keyboard lights are still on, everything seems ok but there's nothing on the screen. After turning it off and on a few times it will eventually come all the way on. This is not a new system. All was well for some time with it. I've tried more than 1 monitor and had the same problem. I even installed xp and still had the same problem so it's likely not the os or the monitor.
I'm by no means the master at this stuff but granted it actually gets past the first part, its sounds like it is freezing reading or loading windows from the hard drive. I vote a new hard drive. Maybe the read access times are very slow. How is old is the hard drive?