How to avoid screen blanking!

[IsaacKuo]

Have you noticed that when you leave your computer alone for a while, it will turn off the display entirely? Do you find this behavior objectionable, because it harms your HDTV or monitor or it gets in the way of your screensaver enjoyment?

Well, here's how I banished this effect:

I went in and edited /etc/X11/XF86Config-4, and commented out the line which had the word "DPMS" in it.

DPMS stands for Display Power Management System. Pretty easy to Google for if you already knew what you were looking for, and pretty impossible to Google for if you didn't.

[hop-frog]

1. How does this feature harm the monitor?
2. Is this a different than feature when my screen goes blank after the screensaver has been on for some time, but the monitor light is still on (hitting keyboard restores it)?

Thanks.

[bwkaz]

What did the line look like before you commented it out?

I don't have DPMS in my config file at all (it was created by xf86config, I think). I'd like to have DPMS turn my monitor off for me after it's been idle for a while, because if it's just blanked (which is what it does now), then the LCD backlight is actually still on. Which reduces the life of the backlight.

So if DPMS will actually shut off the backlight, I'd like to turn it on.

[DrChuck]

Here's what I see in my XF86Config:

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Monitor Vendor"
ModelName "Generic Laptop Display Panel 1024x768"
HorizSync 31.5 - 48.5
VertRefresh 40.0 - 70.0
Option "dpms"
EndSection

Haven't tried removing the dpms option yet.
drChuck

[Icarus]

dpms are the Energy Star features in monitors.

You could also use xset to change how long until it blanks or if it never does

Added into your .xinitrc or xstart up script

xset s off

[bwkaz]

Originally posted by DrChuck
Option "dpms" OK, I'll look at adding that, to see if it shuts anything off over here.

Thanks!

[bwkaz]

OK, adding the Option "dpms" to my XF86Config (yes, I still use XFree86, somewhere around v4.3.1, but only because I'm too lazy to upgrade ;)) did enable the various "xset dpms" options -- they had no effect before.

After restarting X, "xset dpms force suspend" and "xset dpms force standby" both basically only blanked the screen (they did the same thing as what I saw happening after 10 minutes before I turned on the "dpms" option -- that is, the LCD backlight was on, but the pixels were all off). However, "xset dpms force off" did turn the backlight off on the LCD.

So I think I'll adjust the DPMS timings ("xset dpms 0 0 600" ought to do it, to disable suspend and standby, and set off to 600 seconds), and keep this on, to try to extend the life of my backlight. (It's rated at 10,000 hours, and I probably have it on for 5 or 6 hours a day. But some of that time, it's not actually showing anything, so I want the backlight to be off during this time.) Thanks again!

[Icarus]

"xset dpms force off"
Only blanks the screen on my laptop, but I have an ATI Radeon card. Using the radeontool program I can turn the backlight off, still trying to get that to work with xset or something so it's automatic...

[JohnT]

There is some measure of control in the bios for this.

[infiniphunk]

Ive noticed that everytime I've done a re-install I have to edit /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 because by default it says:

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Samsung"
ModelName "SyncMaster 955df"
#Option "DPMS" "true"
HorizSync 30-85
VertRefresh 50-160
Modeline "640x480" 25.175 640 664 760 800 480 491 493 525 #60Hz
Modeline "800x600" 40.12 800 848 968 1056 600 601 605 628 #60Hz
Modeline "1024x768" 75 1024 1048 1184 1328 768 771 777 806 -hsync -vsync

I have to uncomment #Option "DPMS" "true" for this to work for me, otherwise the monitor doesn't go in power-save mode correctly. I just wonder why the installer sets it up that way by default?

[JohnT]

The option is not even included with the newer xorg.conf

[Icarus]

Adding
option "dpms" true
into the xorg.conf cause X to not even start for me

[JohnT]

No need to configure xorg when the adjustment is available from the bios settings.

[bwkaz]

Originally posted by Icarus
Adding
option "dpms" true
into the xorg.conf cause X to not even start for me What does X complain about when it doesn't start?

[Icarus]

As JohnT said, it's not even an option with xorg, so it errors with something like unsupported option

[bwkaz]

Oh, OK, I thought he meant that it wasn't in the config file by default (similar to the way it wasn't in mine, because mine was generated by xf86config).

I'm not sure what's going on then.

[JohnT]

Thats what I meant......for those interested in delving into their DPMS settings......here a little insight.
http://linuxreviews.org/howtos/power/xorg_dpms/index.html.en

[bwkaz]

Originally posted by JohnT
http://linuxreviews.org/howtos/power/xorg_dpms/index.html.en One minor little thing:

Special Notes: Nvidia users... Seems the latest drivers (The 6111 series atleast) don't support the standard DPMS setup. I had to add:

Option "DPMS"

to my Device section as well. <...> Your X log will show this if you set it up correctly:

(**) Option "dpms" "true"
(**) NVIDIA(0): DPMS enabled I am using the 6629 drivers, and the option is honored if it's set in the Monitor section:

$ grep -B6 -A1 dpms /etc/X11/XF86Config
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"

HorizSync 30.0-85.0
VertRefresh 50-160

Option "dpms"
EndSection
$ grep -i dpms /var/log/XFree86.0.log
(II) Loading extension DPMS
(**) Option "dpms"
(**) NVIDIA(0): DPMS enabled Maybe that was true with 6111, but it's not with 6629.