openSUSE 11.4: VGA monitor doesn't go into standby

English Hardware
1

I have just installed openSUSE 11.4 on a Dell desktop (about 5 years old) with Intel 915G graphics, driving an (oldish) LCD monitor via a VGA interface. (Previously I had openSUSE 11.2 installed, but 11.4 was a full install, not an upgrade.) Because of X server stability problems under 11.4, I have ‘nomodeset’ as a boot parameter.

From KDE’s System Settings -> Power Management, I have Screen Energy Saving configured to trigger after 5 minutes. Sure enough, after about 5 minutes, the screen goes black. Well, blackish, because (unlike 11.2) the monitor appears still to be receiving a VGA signal, so it doesn’t go into standby mode, and the backlight remains on.

Any thoughts?

2

Hi there,

What happens if you run:

xset dpms force off

–
Cheers,
Lews Therin

3

Lews,

Thanks for the quick reply.

The same thing: the screen goes black, but the monitor doesn’t enter standby and the backlight stays on.

Ingunger

4

A bit more on this, though I haven’t yet found a satisfactory solution.

  1. After doing

xset force dpms off

then

xset -display :0.0 q

(issued remotely) reports that the monitor is off (which it isn’t).

  1. I installed vbetools and sure enough

vbetool dpms off

puts the monitor properly into standby. But then of course it doesn’t come back on again when you wiggle the mouse or touch a key; I had to turn it back on by logging in remotely. (Some postings on the web suggest binding a key combination to ‘vbetool dpms on’, but such hackery really ought not to be necessary: remember this all worked perfectly under openSUSE 11.2.)

  1. The (unfortunately undated) posting at Screen Blanking Under X reports that Xorg frequently doesn’t use DPMS when it says it’s doing so.

Anyway, there appears to have been a definite regression since openSUSE 11.2 here

5

I eventually resolved this by switching to the ‘intellegacy’ video driver, as suggested here, and following the instructions accessible from here.