Help requested - screen saver will not activate

[kidziti]

I was so fed up with this problem on my T40 that I reformatted and reinstalled the system via the Recovery CD's. Not only was the screen saver not working (or working, then waking up with no keyboard or mouse inputs), but some process (I suspect the same one that is causing this problem) slows down the system at regular intervals for a few seconds each time (I'll type a word, but each character takes 2 or 3 seconds to paint on the screen).

The system is STILL doing this, yet is relatively vanilla (with just my antivirus and Sygate Firewall added - the same programs on my XP Pro desktop which does NOT exhibit this behavior). I was hoping to tap you folks for some ideas or clues - either what you think it may be, or ideas on how I can monitor and catch (in the act) the process that is responsible.

The system is a T40/p with XP Pro installed via the IBM installation CDs.

[JHEM]

Check that your ethernet card is not set to "Wake on LAN" in properties.

FWIW, screensavers are a waste of resources on a laptop (and desktops) unless you plan on spending time watching it for amusement. Simply set your display to turn OFF after whatever your particular period of time choice would be for the screensaver to actuate.

Also remember that screensavers are constantly running in the background on your computer and eating away at your resources, even when they're not actually displayed.

Nor is there any need to run a screensaver in order to prevent burn-in, something that modern LCDs (nor modern CRTs) aren't prone to develop.

Regards,

James

[kidziti]

I changed the BIOS setting for Wake on LAN to disabled, saved the settings and still the problem persists. I agree that screensavers may be a bit archaic for an LCD laptop, but it won't even activate the power schemes I have. I have the screensaver set to go at 10 minutes and the monitor to power off at 30 minutes. All that happens is occasionally I'll get the screen saver, but it always wakes up on its own. I never get the monitor or machine to go into standby unless I set it for less than 5 minutes, in which case it sometimes works. It makes me suspicious of a process that activates and thus resets the timer on both screen saver and power management at regular or semi-regular intervals.

Everything is completely up to date on the system - both via IBM and Microsoft. I have XP Pro SP2 installed via the 4 official IBM Recovery CDs that came with the system. IBM seems to think it's a bad system board and they're tentatively scheduled to some out here next week to replace it. I think that might be a rather drastic step, and am hoping that I can figure it out before then. I'm a bit nervous about having this machine cracked open - especially when I think - and hopefully can prove - that it's a software issue.

[JHEM]

In XP System> Device Manager> Network Adapters> Intel Pro card> Properties> Power Management> Make sure the box for "Allow this device to bring the unit out of standby" is unchecked.

If the problem persists after that, you'll have to cull through your running processes to determine what's bringing the unit out of standby.

Regards,

James