[Solved] Powersave issue with monitor

[MoeNeigh]

I'm using the 10.04 Beta-2 and loving it. When I watch a DVD with VLC, the monitor stays on throughout the playing of the DVD. If I try to watch a movie on Hulu, I guess that's not treated as an activity, so the monitor blanks out every 10 minutes. No matter what settings I make in the Power Management section of system settings, this continues to happen. Is PowerDevil new with 10.04?

Otherwise, love the new 10.04 Beta-2. Boot up is very fast, and so far, I haven't had to install a proprietary video driver for my nvidia card.

[lcorken]

Re: Powersave issue with monitor

My desktop monitor kept shutting off after 10 or 15 min. even after I thought I changed settings.
Don't remember which I did first, but eventually got it.

System settings has several ways to change power setting that confuse me but you can try looking at

Advanced > Power management > General settings
Advanced > Power management > Edit Profiles > Actions
Advanced > Power management > Edit Profiles > Screens

I don't know all that relates to a note-book but it fixed my desktop.
Also don't know how it relates to Hulu and other apps.

Ken

[MoeNeigh]

Re: Powersave issue with monitor

I've been messing with System Settings > Advanced > Power Management for a long time now. Like you, I find it very confusing. I wish someone could explain what all these settings mean. No matter what changes I make, my desktop monitor blanks out after 10 minutes. I'm watching TV now, so I check my watch, and sure enough every 10 minutes the monitor blanks out. If I tell it to "do nothing" rather than "suspend to ram", it still shuts the monitor off. I'm wondering if there is a config file that is not responding to the changes I make in the GUI.

I'm under the impression that these settings apply primarily to notebooks. I only have a desktop, and I'm just trying to get my monitor from blanking out every 10 minutes.

[oshunluvr]

Re: Powersave issue with monitor

You could try turning off dpms completely.

In a terminal, type xset -q

and you should see:
DPMS (Energy Star):
Standby: 1200 Suspend: 1800 Off: 0
DPMS is Enabled
Monitor is On

To disable it temporarily type in xset -dpms

Then xset -q should say

DPMS (Energy Star):
Standby: 1200 Suspend: 1800 Off: 0
DPMS is Disabled

To re-enable it, type in xset +dpms

If you wanted to get fancy - assign these commands to a keyboard combo and you can turn it off and on at will.

To turn it off for good, if you're using an xorg.conf file, in the monitor section there is likely a line

Option "Dpms"

remove or remark it out and restart x.

[MoeNeigh]

Re: Powersave issue with monitor

Hot dog! Thanks, oshunluvr! That was just what the doctor ordered! And I like being able to turn it on and off as desired. Good stuff to know!

[oshunluvr]

Re: [Solved] Powersave issue with monitor

glad I could help. I use the xset command to turn off my monitors immediately when I get up from my desk. I have a multimedia key assigned to the task.

[MoeNeigh]

Re: [Solved] Powersave issue with monitor

Caveat: I'm able to turn display power management on and off as needed. But for some reason, the monitor still dims in just one instance -- when I'm watching a movie within the firefox browser. I'm wondering if there is still some other setting that needs adjusting. I've created three scripts which I can click on to show dpms status, dpms on, and dpms off. With dpms off, I should be able to watch a movie in firefox, but apparently in that instance the disabled dpms is being overridden somehow. All other activities are working as expected.

[MoeNeigh]

Re: [Solved] Powersave issue with monitor

Sorry about the previous post! After the latest round of updates, restarting the computer, and double-checking the dpms on/off switch, everything seems to be A-OK again. Movies in firefox now play without interruption.

[suplero]

Re: [Solved] Powersave issue with monitor

I don't know how 10.04 is working with power management, but in the previous versions I had the same problem, but it wasn't where I thought it was.

My monitor has a natural powersave setting, and if it doesn't detect activity, then it turns off on its own.

I disabled all the power management settings and the like, but until I discovered this I couldn't watch anything without it blanking on me.

My fix was to set the power management timeouts to high values, so the monitor wouldn't blank on its own.