Hi, I've got a problem with my laptop... I cant work out how to stop (or extend) it blanking the screen after a few minutes, I've tried loads of things ppl have suggested to me, cant work out what it is any input would be most grateful, cheers in advance !

What have you tried so far? If you give us specifics it's less likely we'll repeat suggestions

setterm -blank 0 -powersave off -powerdown 0

I also looked through the X config but couldnt find anything that was controling the blanking

Change your modelines.

You can try using Knoppix if you have CD-ROM drive. Then check out its modeline configuration. Edit your original modelines. Also check the logs in Knoppix.

If you don't have a CD-ROM boot in runlevel 1 and run xf86config. If you want to adjust your settings in GUI use xvidtune, but be careful.

Just for the curiosity ... at first I thought that you want to disable the blanking of screen in the console mode, but than you mentioned X ... now i'm puzzled.

Anyway ... if you want to disable it in X just put:
xset s off

in your X init script (man xset for more details).

Otherwise ... sorry

Enjoy

Just a suggestion that came to mind: make sure your battery is fully charged. Many laptops will turn off the screen when battery power drops below a certain point (like 5%)

well its constantly on mains power (as I dont move it from my desk much) so I dont THINK its that, I tried xset and it STILL does it, its VERY odd

phoeniXflame,

well if the computer is very old (and it's a laptop ... huh, dunno much about them), this might (or even will ??) be a kick in the dark, but you never know.

Maybe, just maybe your comp has Energy Star option (for monitor)
Try entering in the console (or put it in your X init file):
xset -dpms

which will disable it.

But for sure, check the xset current settings with:
xset -q (in console)

and search for lines that say:
"screensaver"
and
"DPMS (Energy Star)"

wether they have (DPMS) disabled and (screensaver) timeout: 0 set.

Enjoy

thanks for the reply

yea screen saver timeout is 0 and DPMS is disabled, is this right yea ?

Hmmm ...

are you running some sort fo xscreensaver maybe?
Try:
ps -A

and see if there's anything like that running.

Otherwise, I'm out of ideas ... will try to figure it out and come back to you.

Enjoy

nope no screensaver program that I can see, Its running fluxbox on a slackware 8.1 system if you were wondering btw

Have you checked your BIOS?

Enjoy

wow how embaressing

cheers ifur, you tipped me off I thought the toshiba bios was un-accessible, however, I learned from a newsgroup post that you can get to it by holding down ESC when booting, once there I found that the laptop had been set to 'Power Saving' power profile ALL the time which was causing the screen to blank after 3 mins now set on 'External Power' profile and all is working perfectly !

thanks to all who helped me on this one !