Laptop goes on standby, or stops responding after screen saver - but standby is disabled

[Guest Rene Brehmer]

Laptop goes on standby, or stops responding after screen saver - but standby is disabled

 

This is really two problems, but I think they're related.

 

Toshiba Satellite A210-04F upgraded (AMD Turion64 X2 TK-60 (2 GHz), 2 GB

DDR2-800, 200 GB SATA HDD) w. Windows XP Pro SP2

 

Machine is set to switch to screen saver after 10 mins, and turn off the

monitor after 25 mins. All other power saving settings are disabled on the

AC profile. Password on power-up from standby is enabled.

 

I very rarely run off the battery, usually it sits on the AC power all day.

Automatic standby and hibernation is disabled on the AC power profile, both

in the Toshiba power settings, and the Windows power profiles. Every day I

lock the computer (Win+L) when I go to lunch. Every few days when I come

back from lunch, the computer is on standby, and I have to tap the power

button to wake it up.

 

Other days I come back from lunch and the machine says it's on, but the

built-in screen won't come back on. I've tried using it with an external

monitor as well, and the main monitor would stay dead, but the external

monitor comes on, but I cannot move the mouse cursor into the extended

space on the external monitor.

 

I cannot find anything in any of the logs that mentions anything giving me

a reason for why it would mock up like this, or gives me an approximate

timeframe,

 

Several times I've seen it skip the screensaver completely, and just turn

off the monitor instead, and then not responding to wakeup calls (machine

stays on, but monitor is off). I've tried disabling the screen saver, I've

tried disabling the Toshiba power control. I've downloaded every update I

could find for any of the software on this laptop.

 

I cannot find anything enabled in the BIOS that pertains to the power

saving features.

 

I don't care if it turns off the monitor. I don't mind that it goes on

Standby, EXCEPT that it sometimes does it despite it being busy working on

something (like downloading files, defragmenting the harddrive, or doing

some other lengthy processing). What I do care about is that I have several

(over a dozen at times) programs and lots and lots of files open at once to

make and test my projects, and when it stops responding like that, it means

a lot of lost work time because I have to open everything back up again.

 

 

--

Rene Brehmer

IT Technician

 

North Hill Inn

http://www.northhillinn.com