Problem: Blank screen appears during gameplay?

[Popcorrin]

I am running mame .77 under windows xp home editions via mamewah, with mamewah set as shell.  While playing pacman and also centipede the screen has mysteriously gone blank after around a half an hour of gameplay.  I can still hear the audio from the game when this occurs.  I have checked the s-video connections to the tv and everything is tight.  Also the picture returns when I exit the game.  
I have at times played games for 3 hour stretches with no problem whatsoever so I don't know what would cause this at random times.

The computer I have is an emachines with a celeron processor.
 Even with running mamewah as shell can a program start at a scheduled time causing mame to lose focus or something of that sort?  Could I make any adjustments thru msconfig to possibly correct the problem.

If anyone has any answers or has had similar problems please let me know.  Thanks

[cdbrown]

Not come across this before during game play and the only things I can think of are look within the Power Options in the XP control panel to ensure that all the settings are set to never - ie turn off monitor - never
Then go into display settings and make sure there isn't any screen saver set.  You've probably done these already but it's all I could think of as when I had my machine idol the video signal to the tv would stop after 20min which is the setting in the power options.

Good luck
-cdbrown

[Popcorrin]

Thanks for the response.
I'll have to doublecheck it to make sure that those setting weren't changed which I won't be able to do til later tonite.
 Just curious, is it still possible for the power saving options or screensaver to take effect while you are playing a game, moving the joystick, hitting buttons?  

[cdbrown]

I don't think it is possible but I know that when going into ArcadEPIC is auto set's msn messenger as busy and once I exit a game back to the FE I notice the FE inbuilt screen saver running which indicates to me that the button presses aren't being recognised by the FE.  That's what made me think that perhaps there's some code in mamewah which somehow makes xp think that no button presses are being done.

One other thing you could try is when this does happen - move the mouse around to see it that brings the picture back.