Screen saver in XP Home edition won't work

  • Thread starter Thread starter fizmokat
  • Start date Start date
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fizmokat

I just bought a new Dell Inspiron w/ XP Home in October. The screen saver
worked up until about a week ago. I do NOT have a wireless mouse or
keyboard, but have checked for the ehtray to make sure, and it is not there
to disable.

I am assuming that since this is a brand new computer, that it would have
all updated service paks installed (plus I do automatic updates). I am the
only user of the computer, so it does not get logged on/off for other users.
I read through the questions on the help page, but nothing seems to resolve
the issue.

Any thoughts?
Thank you.
 
Rightclick an open area center of monitor screen and click Properties.
Now click the Screensaver tab. Select one of the Savers and click
Preview. What do you get? Also set the Wait time for 5 minutes and
test the system.
 
Thanks for your reply.
I have tried several different types of screen savers (scrolling marquee, 3D
pipes, etc), and they work during the preview stage, but they never come on
after leaving the computer idle for any amount of time. One thing that I
noticed today that is quite odd is that changing my power options does not do
anything either. I set my monitor to turn off after 1 minute and for my hard
drive to shut down, but it nothing happens, even after setting idle for over
an hour. It seems that something is running in the background and I don't
know what it would be. I verified that I do have SP 2 installed.
 
You may have "something" running of which you are not aware.
Click Start>Run>type MSCONFIG and click OK
Click the Startup tab and see what is checked. You can uncheck
everything except your anti-virus app>click Apply and Close>reboot.
Now try the screen saver program. If all is well you can recheck the
items you unchecked in MSCONFIG - one at a time - to find the culprit.
 
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