Monitor goes black at screen saver/power save and won't come back.

em21701 · 03-05-2008, 08:39 AM

The last major hurdle that I have to clear appears to be the monitor/video card on my laptop. I have an NVIDIA chipset with the newest NVIDIA driver installed/configured etc. When I walk away from my laptop the screen will power down after a short peroid of time (I think it's like 5 minutes). This is fine, I'd like to keep it that way. The problem is that when I want it to come back, the backlight comes on but the screen remains blank. The computer has not crashed, I can still use it blind to shut it down and restart. I also have this problem if I log out of KDE. The computer will go to the command line but no text will be displayed, again I can use it blind to get it to restart. If I try to google this problem I get lot's of hits related to a blank screen at boot, this is not the problem I have. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance,

BCarey · 03-06-2008, 06:22 PM

You might try a different kernel and/or try tuxonice. Some kernels seem to work well and some don't (in my experience). You also might try an older NVIDIA driver.

Suspend and hibernate have improved vastly over the past year or so, but I still find that some kernels exhibit problems such as this.

Brian

BCarey · 03-06-2008, 06:25 PM

As a side note, once you get it working suspend-to-RAM on linux works extremely well, certainly compared to Windows. Within seconds my system is back up, I still have a network connection (wireless), and I can work at full speed. My wife's laptop (faster processor, more memory, pre-installed VISTA) brings the screen up in more or less the same time, but then takes a while to "wake up" and actually do anything, and often needs to reconnect to the network.

Brian

em21701 · 03-06-2008, 06:57 PM

Thanks, I am working on compiling the newest kernel right now. First Time...I hope it works!

em21701 · 03-07-2008, 07:11 AM

I have successfully installed the newest kernel and I still have the same problem with the screen remaining blank after going into power save and when logging out to the command line.

BCarey · 03-07-2008, 08:54 AM

I think it is your nvidia driver. Try using the vesa driver, and if that works, then try an older nvidia driver.

Brian

Uncle_Theodore · 03-07-2008, 08:58 AM

I had the same problem with the newest NVIDIA driver. The solution was to downgrade.

em21701 · 03-07-2008, 09:53 AM

I'll give that a shot.

em21701 · 03-07-2008, 10:33 AM

After trying the legacy driver that is availiable x won't start. I believe the problem lies within KDE because if I leave the command line running until the monitor shuts off it will come right back, but once I startx the problem returns.

BCarey · 03-07-2008, 11:23 AM

Try the vesa driver, then you'll be sure.

Brian

em21701 · 03-09-2008, 01:59 PM

If I type xset -dpms into the Terminal window the screen will turn off and return properly. So it seems that there are 2 things trying to control the screen power, dpms and potentially the NVIDIA driver (or KDE etc.). How can I run the xset -dpms command (or prevent dpms from being loaded in the first place) automatically each time I startx?

Uncle_Theodore · 03-09-2008, 04:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by em21701

If I type xset -dpms into the Terminal window the screen will turn off and return properly. So it seems that there are 2 things trying to control the screen power, dpms and potentially the NVIDIA driver (or KDE etc.). How can I run the xset -dpms command (or prevent dpms from being loaded in the first place) automatically each time I startx?

You can try setting DPMS off in your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file, in the Monitor section.