Monitor Keeps Shutting Down When Idle

[Guest]

Re: Monitor Keeps Shutting Down When Idle

Have already checked settings for both battery and power. I keep them the same and always active because I always shut my system down when I am not actively using it.

[oshunluvr]

Re: Monitor Keeps Shutting Down When Idle

@rmark: Have you tried disabling power management altogether? Try that in System settings. This took immediate effect for me.

If that has no effect, open a terminal and type xset q

At the end of the data you should see something like:

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

Then type xset -dpms and then xset q should give you

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


If this is what you want, put the xset -dpms in /etc/rc.local or if you have one - edit /ect/X11/xorg.conf and under Monitor add Option "DPMS" "off"

[DaveC]

Re: Monitor Keeps Shutting Down When Idle

Hi Oshunluvr & Snowhog. First, I checked this computer's BIOS & the power settings are disabled so this isn't the problem. I didn't think this was causing the problem because this computer never worked this way with XP before I installed kubuntu but it was worth checking in case this BIOS setting somehow got changed.

Also, I originally had the screen saver disabled since I read that LCD monitors, like this one, use less current when the screen is bright than when it's dark so I stopped using screen savers. With Kubuntu, my monitor always shuts down 10 minutes after the computer goes idle. So, since I was out of other, more logical ideas, I set the screen saver to start after 60 minutes in the hope that the monitor would stay on longer but that didn't work either. The "screen saver" I temporarily chose was just a solid white screen. My objective is not to make the screen saver work but to keep the monitor displaying the image from the last web site I visit until I change it; also, I need the capability of watching lengthy webcasts without the monitor going dark.

I set the Power Management the way you said but, as expected, the monitor went off after 10 min but I tried it so you'd know I set it properly.

Finally, I thought anything entered in the Konsole or elsewhere became permanent, somewhat akin to Windows registry setting changes. And, in the case of registry tweaks, the computer must be rebooted to implement them; that's why I'm using this forum, because I have a lot to learn. If there's a code changethat fixes this problem I need for it to survive turning the computer off & restarting it. Also, how can us newbs tell a temporary code entry from a permanent one? Thanks for your patience.

[oshunluvr]

Re: Monitor Keeps Shutting Down When Idle

The registry file saves changes to it by default. In linux, a command is just that - a command to do something in memory. Whereas a registry edit changes the registry file and is thus persistent (survives reboot).

The registry file is really somewhat of a huge compilation of files and instructions and pointers and commands all lumped together - both a weakness and a strength.

So start with entering xset q in a terminal and posting the output.

[DaveC]

Re: Monitor Keeps Shutting Down When Idle

Thanks Oshunluvr. The info you gave rmark worked for me, too [I have a desktop but I didn't think that would matter]. The monitor stayed active til I restarted the computer & then it timed out after 10 min again as I expected. I was beginning to think I had met my Waterloo, again. [I tried Xandros 4.1 for about a year in 2007 & was so overwhelmed with problems that I went back to Windows for the next 3 years. Kubuntu is much more user-friendly & either the problems are easier to fix (so far) or this forum is more helpful (probably both, I hope).]

If this is what you want, put the xset -dpms in /etc/rc.local or if you have one - edit /ect/X11/xorg.conf and under Monitor add Option "DMPS" "off"

Am I correct in assuming that I can add these changes in the Konsole, too? If I can't use the Konsole please explain where & how I can enter this. And I presume you meant DPMS. TIA.

[oshunluvr]

Re: Monitor Keeps Shutting Down When Idle

Am I correct in assuming that I can add these changes in the Konsole, too? If I can't use the Konsole please explain where & how I can enter this. And I presume you meant DPMS (typo fixed, thanks!). TIA.

Konsole is just a KDE desktop terminal. FYI you can enter a full terminal by pressing CRTL-ALT-F1 an logging in but most of the time konsole will work just fine.

To edit a file you need to use a text editor and in this case, since the file is "root" owned you'll need to have "superuser" status when you do this. There are several ways to do this correctly; You can use a terminal based text editor like nano or vi or a GUI based editor like kate or kwrite.

In a terminal; to do something as root (superuser) preface you command with sudo in the case of a terminal mode command (like vi) or use kdesudo to launch a GUI command/program (like kate). The most important thing to note here is never launch a GUI program from a terminal using sudo, always use kdesudo.

On to the edit: Most people prefer the nice GUI editor so we'll use kate. In your konsole terminal type kdesudo kate /etc/rc.local . This wll open a box for you to put in your password and then will open kate with root power and the rc.local file. Add the command xset -dpms at the end of the file and save.

Another old school tip: For some reason, some programs require their text-based settings files to contain a final blank line at the end. Rather than trying to guess or keep track of which programs care about this and which don't - always leave a blank line st the end of any text file you edit.

The reason is mentioned laptop vs. desktop is if you are using a laptop screen power management is critical to battery life and not so for a desktop.

[DaveC]

Re: Monitor Keeps Shutting Down When Idle

Thanks, Oshunluvr, for the help so far; I'm getting closer but still no cigar. As I said earlier, the instructions you gave rmark to disable DPMS work great for me but I need a little more help making it permanent. I got to kate & put in the -dpms instruction & saved it so it looks like this:

#!/bin/sh -e
#
# rc.local
#
# This script is executed at the end of each multiuser runlevel.
# Make sure that the script will "exit 0" on success or any other
# value on error.
#
# In order to enable or disable this script just change the execution
# bits.
#
# By default this script does nothing.
#
# xset -dpms
#
exit 0

The "xset -dpms" is there permanently, as it should be, but DPMS doesn't stay disabled so what do I need to do next? TIA.

[Snowhog]

Re: Monitor Keeps Shutting Down When Idle

# xset -dpms

Remove the # from this line. # indicate a 'comment' and don't execute.

[DaveC]

Re: Monitor Keeps Shutting Down When Idle

Just one newb question: what do you mean by "execute" here, just to ensure that I don't accidentally do it? Regards.

[Snowhog]

Re: Monitor Keeps Shutting Down When Idle

In this context, I mean that the line, left commented (with the # in front of it), will not run - the xset -dpms command will not be run.

[DaveC]

Re: Monitor Keeps Shutting Down When Idle

OK, got it; I thought you were telling me not to execute it! Thanks.

[DaveC]

Re: Monitor Keeps Shutting Down When Idle

DPMS still won't stay disabled after this computer is stopped & restarted. The last 4 lines of rc.local in Kate now read:
#
xset -dpms

exit 0

It appears that something in Kubuntu is overriding the xset -dpms command in Kate but not in Bash/konsole. Unfortunately though this command in Bash gets reset at bootup as was explained to me. I hope there are still more ways to fix this. TIA.

[oshunluvr]

Re: Monitor Keeps Shutting Down When Idle

open a terminal and type b]xset q[/b] and post the results.

[DaveC]

Re: Monitor Keeps Shutting Down When Idle

open a terminal and type b]xset q[/b] and post the results.

Just one line on the terminal that said: "b]xset: command not found" [without the quotes] & monitor went dark again after 10 min.

TIA.

[dibl]

Re: Monitor Keeps Shutting Down When Idle

You might need to install the x11-xserver-utils package:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install x11-xserver-utils

When it is done, confirm that you have it with

man xset

It should output the manual for the utils. If it does, then try again

xset -q