X Screensaver garbles screen

[TonyGroves]

I have a new installation of Debian Sarge with X. I'm running fvwm and using the default screensaver, a blank screen.

After 10 minutes of user inactivity (either in fvwm or at the logon screen), the screensaver kicks in, and if the mouse is moved the screen gets restored normally; that's fine. However, after a further 10 minutes of user inactivity, the screensaver progresses to shutting down the monitor, and when the mouse is moved, the monitor starts up again, but what appears on the screen amounts to little more than noise, either a starfield or a pattern of lines; it's impossible to tell what's really there. If I think it's the logon screen, then I would have to press Ctrl-Alt-Backspace to refresh the screen; if I think fvwm is running, then I can click on what I think is a blank area of the screen, and select Refresh Screen.

The machine is a 6-year-old P2 350MHz, with 128MB RAM and NVidia Riva 128 on-board video. My X configuration is as follows:

Driver: nv
Identifier: NVIDIA / SGS Thomson (Joint Venture) Riva128
Bus indentifier: (left blank)
Memory : (left blank)
XKB rule set: xfree86
Keyboard: pc104
Keyboard layout: ie
Keyboard variant: (left blank)
Keyboard options: (left blank)
Mouse port: ps/aux
Mouse model: PS/2
Emulate 3-button mouse: yes
Enable mouse wheel scroll: yes
Monitor identifier: Generic Monitor
LCD monitor: no
Monitor configuration method: medium
Video mode: 800x600 @ 85 Hz
Video modes: 1024x768, 800x600, 640x480
Colour depth: 8 bits
XFree86 server modules to be loaded: all
Write default Files section: yes
Write default DRI section: yes

Any suggestions as to how to overcome this problem would be much appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Trevoke]

Is it all "energy star" or whatever energy saver.. compliant?

You're saying the monitor has an issue coming out of sleep mode... So disable the sleep mode in xscreensaver ;-)

Also, this should probably be in "Linux(client/desktop)"

-Haben sie fosforos?
-No tiengo caballero, but I have un briquet.

 

[TonyGroves]

I've never seen any indication that the system is Energy Star anything.

I'll check the xscreensaver docs and find out how to disable sleep mode, but it would be nice to know what's causing the problem and if there's any other solution.

Sorry for posting in the wrong forum; the machine is being used as a server, but you're right, it is a desktop issue.

Thanks.

 

[Trevoke]

Heh, what about the BIOS? Anything about ACPI in there?

-Haben sie fosforos?
-No tiengo caballero, but I have un briquet.

 

[TonyGroves]

I'm just after noticing that I don't actually have xscreensaver installed; it must be a core X function.

Regarding the BIOS, there is a "VESA video power down" setting, with a choice of Disable, Standby, Suspend, or Sleep. It's currently set to Suspend, but I'll try the other options and see how that affects things.

Thanks.