What is going onnn?!?!?! External Monitor Issues

[PhixionFilms]

Ok, everything was working fine until today. I restarted my computer and pram and the problem still persists. The problem is, when i have my external monitor plugged into my mbp and i want to do clam shell mode, i will shut my mbp. I then wake my monitor up by clicking my mouse or pushing enter on my keyboard. Maybe 5 seconds later while im in the middle of putting my password in, the monitor then goes to sleep, as it would if i shut my mbp again. I wake the monitor back up, and 5 seconds later it will shut off again.
Is this a known problem? It only will keep shutting off if my mbp is closed, so im not thinking its my monitor. If my mbp is open, it will stay on. Does anyone have any advise to fix this issue?

 

[madog]

Didn't read through all of this: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1390303&tstart=0. Looks like the mai discussion at the Apple forum for this problem.

This was a smaller one that points to a Leopard Graphics update as a possible culprit. Someone did a reinstall without installing the current updates and it worked. The outcome seemed to be resolved in the larger discussion, but I'm not sure: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6592292

 

[milk242]

I have a mac pro with an ati hd 2600 and have the same problem from time to time.

I think it has something to do with the same issue where 3d acceleration is disabled in vmware fusion because of drivers