Preventing display from turning off

saurav · 2009-09-19 20:31:07

Hi,

I installed Arch64 on a Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop. If there is no user input activity (such as keyboard activity) for about 5 minutes, the display turns off. I have to press a key (or swipe the touchpad if in X) to get the display back. It seems to be a simple, purposeful turning off of the display to save power or whatever. However, I would like to prevent this from occurring.

This issue is _not_ related to X because it has been occurring from the very beginning, before I had installed X, and even before installing hal and acpid, so it doesn't seem to be related to those either. It therefore occurs whether the X server is running or not. It seems to be by design, so there must be a way to turn it off.

Please let me know if any other info is required.

Thanks in advance.

skottish · 2009-09-19 21:01:44

Try turning off DPMS using:

xset -dpms &

If it works, put somewhere like ~/.xinitrc so it becomes the default.

cerbie · 2009-09-19 21:02:13

Check your BIOS options for it.

Try setting the timeouts for X, and see if that overrides your hardware's automatic functionality.

Gen2ly · 2009-09-19 21:22:31

Personally, I like to do the xorg server timeouts too. Your DE might override it though. Created a script for kde if you use that that can toggle blanking,powersaving,screensaver,suspend off so you can say... watch a movie:

movietime

saurav · 2009-10-02 11:39:24

Thanks for the replies. I found a way to turn off the feature in KDE - enable display power management in System Settings, Display and set each aspect to 'Disabled' individually. It seems this is similar to xset -dpms as suggested by skottish.

All the replies posted earlier, as well as my own solution, only work for X. It's fine for now, since I mostly use the GUI, however, I have still to come across a solution that works for text mode without X too.

Zeist · 2009-10-02 12:00:18

You probably want to do pretty much the opposite of what this guy wanted to achieve for use without X:

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=66169

saurav · 2009-10-06 06:29:09

Thanks, Zeist! Seems to be what I'm looking for. Shall try it out.

Gen2ly · 2009-10-06 17:00:14

Arch Linux

#1 2009-09-19 20:31:07

Preventing display from turning off

#2 2009-09-19 21:01:44

Re: Preventing display from turning off

#3 2009-09-19 21:02:13

Re: Preventing display from turning off

#4 2009-09-19 21:22:31

Re: Preventing display from turning off

#5 2009-10-02 11:39:24

Re: Preventing display from turning off

#6 2009-10-02 12:00:18

Re: Preventing display from turning off

#7 2009-10-06 06:29:09

Re: Preventing display from turning off

#8 2009-10-06 17:00:14

Re: Preventing display from turning off

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