>>I'll be working on an app in the IDE and all of a sudden, the screen will blank out. When it happens it's usually when I haven't keyed in anything for about 30 seconds or so.
It doesn't always happen... but often enough.
This is pure anecdote: but check your Video driver. We've seen this symptom as well as VFP freezing on right-click menus that was isolated to Windows video driver snafu. With most recent Windows Updates, for the first time in years on modern Wintel we're seeing occasional BSOD crashes in Youtube videos that might appear unrelated except it's the same Windows video driver nominated in the BSOD. Google your exact video card/variant "crash" and see what you find.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1