Screen blanks and won't turn back on

[Brian Wood]

I seem to have a fairly odd problem with Windows XP Home
Edition. It seems to happen regardless of the program
that I have open. This leads me to believe that it is XP
and not that particular program causing a conflict. I
have a laptop, and have set the settings for when I close
the lid to the laptop, it doesn't do anything (no
standby, hibernation). I will open a program such as
Windows Media Player and start a playlist. I close the
lid and if I open it immediately, everything is fine. If
I wait say 20-30 minutes, when I open the lid, the screen
doesn't turn back on. It just stays black. Windows is
still apparently "fine", because I can navigate around
Windows (just as if I didn't have an LCD screen). I can
even navigate to the shutdown menu and select Standby (I
have memorized how to get to that particular option
without the use of a screen) and am able to force it into
standby. Then when I wake it up, everything is fine. I
don't understand why it is happening. I am wondering if
it is a bug in Windows. I have contacted Dell Support,
but they have seemed to not understand a word I say or
the depth of the problem, so I deduce further that it is
a Windows problem. Does anyone else have this problem? If
you have fixed it, please let me know. Thanks.

 

[Bill James]

You may want to check the setting for powering off the monitor when computer is idle. Try this: right click on the desktop and select Properties, then the Screen Saver tab, then the Power button. See what the setting are for turning off the monitor, both for battery power and AC power. When the system turns off the monitor that way, you should be able to bring it back by just moving the mouse or pressing a key, but I think it is worth the time to check that and extend the timeout period to see what effect it has.

--

Bill James
Microsoft MVP - Shell/User

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