Hopefully someone can figure this out, because I can't.

I have an old P166 running at work with a 15" monitor. I just use it to display various pictures in a slideshow (shell script using xloadimage). I used to have RedHat 6.2 on it, and everything was working fine. But I reinstalled it with RedHat8.0 and am using ICEWM.

Now, the screen goes blank after about 15 minutes. It is like a power-saving feature I guess, because when I move the mouse or hit a key, it comes back on.

Now it isn't the monitor or the BIOS, because it didn't do these before (and I checked the settings)

It isn't apmd, I have disabled that. I don't have xscreensaver installed, and I have tried the command to turn off screen blanking at a console window.

The only thing I can still see that could be doing it is [kapmd]. This is the power management stuff that is built into the kernel. I don't want to have to recompile the kernel to remove this, so somebody please tell me that it is something else that is causing this!

Thanks

Michael

I have a RedHat 8.0 installation that definately doesn't do what you are claiming. I am using GNOME though - so perhaps it's an Ice setting?

I was thinking it was ICE too, but I can't figure out how to turn it off. I found this in the icewm FAQ:
--------
By default IceWM uses xlock (without any argument) to lock your screen. There may be several reasons for using a different lock command:

There is no xlock on your machine.
xlock tends to crash on your machine either leaving you locked out (best case) or unlocking your session (worst case).
xlock has some CPU intensive modes compiled in that interfere with your SETI@HOME session.

It is very easy to set a lock command: Simply add


LockCommand="xlock -mode blank"

to your $HOME/.icewm/preferences and xlock will run in blank mode (which shows nothing but a black screen).

The example was chosen on purpose: Using this mode you have the best chance of your monitor going asleep (enter power saving mode).

-----

But I don't have xlock installed. So I tried to set it to a dummy program, and it still happens. I have also tried "xset x noblank", but it doesn't work either.

I did find this on the icewm mailing list archive:

----

> how can I make ice not go into screensaving-mode/lock up the screen
> (currently I set everything I could find with a name even remotely
> similar to screensaver or lock, but my screen still goes blank after a
> while)..

It is not icewm blanking your screen. It is the X system itself. The
behavior can be changed using the "xset" command with "s" (screensaver)
and/or "dpms" (power saving) option. See xset man page for details.

----

I had tried the "xset s" command, but not the one for dpms.
"xset -dpms" didn't work either. Argggh.

Maybe I found my answer....

"xset q" will show you the settings you have configured.

Even though I had dpms (Energy Star) disabled, it was still blanking. I could verify that it was the screen saver doing it by setting the timeout to 10 seconds.

"xset s 10 10"

After 10 seconds, the screen would go black, even though I don't have a screensaver installed.

So I set it to this:

"xset s 28800 28800"

This will set the timeout to 8 hours. (I tried 10, but got an "out of range" error)

So I put it in my .Xclients just before I launch icewm, and I should be all set!
Phew!

You can also add

to the
Section "ServerFlags"
of your /etc/X11/XF86Config


Cheers,
Tink

I hate to keep replying to my own messages, but after I thought I had it, the screen went blank again.

You have to have BOTH of the following set for it to work:

"xset s 28800 28800"
"xset -dpms"

Or, as I suggested, turn powersaving off
for X completely ;)

Cheers,
Tink

I checked, there is no "ServerFlags" section in my /etc/X11/XF86Config file for me to add those commands to...

Would I need to create that section, like this?:

Section "ServerFlags"

Option "BlankTime" "0"
Option "NoPM" "true"

EndSection

That's it :)

Cheers,
Tink