Monitor goes black after a few seconds.

[Slam'n Systems]

So a family member just called me up. Their kids were playing with their computer yesterday, and now the monitor is constantly going blank/black after ~5 seconds.

They say the light on the monitor stays green, but the display seems to turn off.

I personally am stumped. They live a little ways away, so I won't be stopping by there anytime soon, and I don't expect them to unhook it and bring it here, but really, I suck at troubleshooting over the phone/without actually seeing what I am working with. Quite frankly, I have never heard of a monitor working fine for a few seconds, and then just going blank. He says it will happen every time he turns it on. Monitor displays for a few seconds, then blank.

Anyone have any ideas?

EDIT:
I told him to do the flashlight trick, and for him to let me know. I guess the monitor is pretty old, so my guess, the monitor is bad.

 

[MindoverMaster]

Could be the backlight. See if it does the same in safe mode. There could be something that's messing up the gfx card.

 

[Slaymate]

Flashlight trick? That's a new one on me.

Anything could be causing their problem. The cpu could be getting hot and turning itself off before anything is posted, the video card could be toast, the monitor could be bad, the power supply could be dieing, etc...

 

[MindoverMaster]

Never heard of that, Slay? I do it on notebooks all the time. You shine a flashlight at an angle into the screen. If you see the desktop, your backlight is toast, if otherwise, as you said above.