Blank Screen after short period of inactivity

SweetLou · 12-11-2006, 09:08 PM

I'm running Debian etch and a couple of weeks ago, my screen (laptop) now goes blank after a few minutes of inactivity, it never used to do this. I checked the settings for the screensaver and power management and I have them set not to use any screensaver and to never turn off the monitor.

Today, I removed gnome-screensaver, but that didn't help. Any ideas on why this is happening and how to correct?

yanik · 12-12-2006, 08:04 AM

what's the output of 'xset -q' ?

farslayer · 12-12-2006, 08:46 AM

Take a look at dpms .. is this in your config ?
http://linuxreviews.org/howtos/power/xorg_dpms/

Oh xset.. nice

Quote:

DPMS (Energy Star):
Standby: 3600 Suspend: 3600 Off: 7200
DPMS is Enabled
Monitor is On

SweetLou · 12-12-2006, 06:32 PM

Thanks,
xset -q gives me:

Quote:

Keyboard Control:
auto repeat: on key click percent: 0 LED mask: 00000000
auto repeat delay: 500 repeat rate: 30
auto repeating keys: 00ffffffdffffbbf
fadfffdfffdfe5ef
ffffffffffffffff
ffffffffffffffff
bell percent: 50 bell pitch: 400 bell duration: 100
Pointer Control:
acceleration: 5/2 threshold: 4
Screen Saver:
prefer blanking: yes allow exposures: yes
timeout: 600 cycle: 600
Colors:
default colormap: 0x20 BlackPixel: 0 WhitePixel: 16777215
Bug Mode: compatibility mode is disabled
DPMS (Energy Star):
Standby: 1200 Suspend: 1800 Off: 2400
DPMS is Enabled
Monitor is On

It does seem to have standby, suspend and off set. But in my Gnome preferences, I see that I have it set to "Never".

SweetLou · 12-12-2006, 07:09 PM

Ok, I disabled dpms by typing:
xset -dpms

I now get

Quote:

DPMS (Energy Star):
Standby: 1200 Suspend: 1800 Off: 2400
DPMS is Disabled

I left my computer and came back to a black screen again.

Dead Parrot · 12-13-2006, 04:57 AM

Quote:

Ok, I disabled dpms by typing:
xset -dpms

I now get

Quote:
DPMS (Energy Star):
Standby: 1200 Suspend: 1800 Off: 2400
DPMS is Disabled
I left my computer and came back to a black screen again.

Try this instead:

Code:

xset -dpms s off

The "s off" part should turn the screen-blanking screensaver mode off.

SweetLou · 12-13-2006, 08:45 PM

That seems to do the trick. I will lose this after I log off or reboot, correct? How would I have this set always?

Anyone know why this started to happen? Like I said, it only started a couple of weeks ago.