text: screen turns black but i can still see my pointer? my screen keeps turning black.. i can see that the pointer changes to a hand when it moves on a weblink so i know that everything is working fine except , i just see my pointer and the black screen! i have to manually restart my pc.  i have never been able to close the telnet port but i have zone alarm.. i worry if this is an application hijack! i think that your worst fear may be try - you might be experiencing browser hijack. you should update your pc from the safe mode (update zonealarm), instal antispyware software as well as anti virus (if your zone alarm is only firewall) and try asking a friedn to run hijack this for you on your computer. if nothing of this helps you should reunstal you os using the original cd's.