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Screen saver not working.

Denithor

Denithor

Diamond Member
Weird issue here -

I have set up a system with a 7870 (stock clocks) that has an LCD computer monitor hooked up by DVI and an LCD HDTV hooked up by HDMI. Everything works okay except that I cannot get the screen saver to work and the power saving option of turning off screen doesn't work either.

Running Catalyst 13.1 (was the latest available when set it up).

I have a feeling this is a result of having two monitors plugged in at once but not sure how to remedy. Any suggestions to try?

Thanks!

EDIT: As a note, the screen saver preview works just fine. However, setting the screen saver to come on after 1 minute and leaving it idle, nothing happens and the screen stays on well past the point of the setting to turn off the screen (10 minutes).
 
AnonymouseUser said:
Have you disconnected one monitor yet, to see if it will work without it?
Click to expand...

Try this and try safe mode. As already stated, media players will often not allow the screen saver to start. Some other programs are guilty of that too. MagicJack is one possibility. Media Center is another. Sometimes Media Center won't let my screen saver open until I close an reopen Media Center.

So, even if none of these programs fit the bill, try killing all your unnecessary processes to see if it allows your screen saver to work. A good starting point is to disable all non-Microsoft services in msconfig (I think that's where it is).
 
Screen savers are not needed with LCDs. If you are not using your system, turn your monitor off.
 
AnonymouseUser said:
Have you disconnected one monitor yet, to see if it will work without it?
Click to expand...

No, but that's actually a quite good suggestion. Will try tomorrow morning (next time I will see the build).

corkyg said:
Screen savers are not needed with LCDs. If you are not using your system, turn your monitor off.
Click to expand...

I agree, screen savers are not necessary. If this was my personal system I wouldn't worry about it at all. However, this is a build for a friend, she's all into "pretty" stuff and likes having her screen display bright colors when not in use. So telling her to just turn off the screen - not really an option, unfortunately.
 
Update: Unplugging the second screen (TV) did not remedy the problem. Still no sign of screen saver kicking in or monitor turning off (power saver option). Something definitely amiss at this point.

:-(

Any other suggestions to try?
 
Denithor said:
Update: Unplugging the second screen (TV) did not remedy the problem. Still no sign of screen saver kicking in or monitor turning off (power saver option). Something definitely amiss at this point.

:-(

Any other suggestions to try?
Click to expand...

Did you try it the other way around? What do the power options in the control panel look like?
 
Set the screensaver, unplug the mouse, and see if it kicks in. If the mouse is sensitive enough, any small vibration to the desk can cause it to move a little bit and kick off the screensaver timer.
 
Will try the second user idea this weekend.

Power options in control panel are standard Win7HP options. Set to balanced, modified to turn off screen after like 5 or 10 minutes (don't recall which). Has no affect though - screen just stays on/active until power button is pressed.

I can try the mouse, however very very unlikely as if I "preview" the screen saver it works fine and stays going until the mouse is moved again (so, don't think it's the mouse).

This is really driving me up the wall. Did this build for a "slow" girl (aunt's roommate) who loves her screen savers...
 
Okay, update here.

I tried everything I could think of short of a full re-install of Windows. Most of the ideas presented here were tried, with zero success. Screen saver simply refused to work and monitor would not go into power saving mode.

So I pulled the 7870, dropped in a GTX 660 instead, refreshed the drivers and BAM! Screen saver works perfectly, screen shuts down after 10 minutes, everything is perfect. Utterly sucks that AMD drivers are crap, I really liked the 7870 performance but totally unacceptable drawbacks using their drivers. Won't be using AMD again anytime soon.
 
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