Power saving glitch [Archive]

vulcanised

8th Apr 2011, 19:56

I have my power option (XP) set to blank the screen after 10 minutes inactivity and this has worked for me for years.

Recently though, the screen will blank after ten minutes and instantly return, as if something is inhibiting the shutdown. There's nothing running that hasn't been running for ages, and, worst of all, it doesn't happen every day.

Yesterday it worked as normal, today it isn't. I've run What'sRunning and it shows nothing abnormal. Any thoughts?

Saab Dastard

8th Apr 2011, 21:46

Stuck key? Stuck mouse button?

SD

goldfrog

9th Apr 2011, 08:30

When I had this problem it was to do with a "Wake Up On LAN" setting somewhere which just woke the PC up almost as soon as it went to sleep or dimmed the screen.

vulcanised

9th Apr 2011, 14:28

Well, so far today it's all working normally. Only change I've made was disabling Google Updater (just in case) but I doubt that's it as it's probably been there for ages.

Hate these intermittent things......

Blues&twos

9th Apr 2011, 15:51

Wobbly table?

Just asking....

green granite

9th Apr 2011, 15:54

Cat playing with the mouse? :E

Sorry :)

vulcanised

9th Apr 2011, 19:52

Spoke too soon!

It seems to be something I'm running (but not from startup) that is leaving a trace of itself when I close it, and that's enough to screw things up.

It's not the regular stuff, so maybe Thunderbird, or VLC, or..........

Loose rivets

9th Apr 2011, 21:50

I'm looking for a similar thing, though I get a small message top right telling me something is interrupting the program - or something like that.

Being in W7 might give that, where XP doesn't.

Best guess at the moment is the external hard drive I'm plugging in on a USB connection about half the time. It may be trying to access that while it's spooled down, but be alright when it's either running or not plugged in.

Because it's intermittent in any configuration, I'm still not sure of my facts.

vulcanised

11th Apr 2011, 19:52

Cracked it!

Turned out to be the screensaver in Picasa3 which had turned itself on uninvited and was on the same timer setting as the power option.

Oddly, instead of providing the photo display it was showing in the options it simply returned the desktop display.

vulcanised

15th Apr 2011, 11:40

Thought I'd killed it but no, back it came yesterday, having once again changed the setting itself.

This time I've renamed GPhoto.scr with an extra letter so, if it resets again, hopefully it can't find itself.