# Video Card does not wake up monitor...



## Viabobed (Dec 31, 2004)

Hey All,

I have been searching around the nets for an answer with this one. Maybe you guys have stumbled over this.

My video card does not wake up my monitor from sleep, standby, or from being shut off. In order to get video again I have to reset the computer. This is something that becomes really annoying when you leave the computer running a task and when you come back there is no video.

I have read a few articles on the matter and I haven't quite found anything in particular that could stop the issue. So far what I have seen is that it may be driver related. I am currently running the latest ATI legacy drivers.

*The monitor works correctly when I uninstall all of the ATI drivers.* It also worked fine when I downgraded to some old drivers for a while, but then the problem started again.

I have a pretty old system

DELL 2408WFP
XP Home Sp3
P4 2.4Ghz
1024MB DDR Memory
ATI Radeon 9600 128MB


Anything I can do other than restart my system to regain video?


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## manic (Aug 2, 2005)

Turn off standby, and power saving. Just let it go to screensaver.
I never use sleep mode or standby.


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## Viabobed (Dec 31, 2004)

manic said:


> Turn off standby, and power saving. Just let it go to screensaver.
> I never use sleep mode or standby.


That is actually a good workaround, but I don't like the fact that I can't shut off my monitor. I might have to just stick to some old drivers or something. 

Are there third party versions of the ATI's latest drivers?


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## grimx133 (Jan 15, 2008)

You should be able to turn off the monitor without it going into standby. I do that all the time, since my machines are running FAH when not in use. Monitor shuts off, program keeps on crunching. Set monitor power off to whatever time that you want, and standby to never.


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## Viabobed (Dec 31, 2004)

I can't turn off the monitor, if I do that I will have to restart the computer to get video again. The video card will act as if the computer is in standby and send the monitor into power save mode. 

After that happens the only way to get the monitor out of this mode would be by restarting the PC.

What is odd is that it works fine without the ATI drivers...


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## grimx133 (Jan 15, 2008)

Must be an ATI thing, works with the windows settings here, but I use nVidia cards.


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## Viabobed (Dec 31, 2004)

Yeah I think it is an ATI thing, at least for the legacy (old) card support.

If I find a fix for it I guess I will update the thread and mark it as solved. 

I refuse to let this one slide, lol. Thanks for the insight guys.


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## grimx133 (Jan 15, 2008)

Windows should overide the ccc settings, have you tried here for sure? http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/tips/sleep.mspx 
I set the power schemes for "always on"
Turn off monitor for after 20 minutes.
Then the last 3 to "never".


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## Viabobed (Dec 31, 2004)

grimx133 said:


> Windows should overide the ccc settings, have you tried here for sure? http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/tips/sleep.mspx
> I set the power schemes for "always on"
> Turn off monitor for after 20 minutes.
> Then the last 3 to "never".


That is pretty much how I used to have it, but now the monitor is also set to "Never" as well since I can't let it shut down. :sigh:

I am going to keep tinkering around to figure this one out.


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## grimx133 (Jan 15, 2008)

Well, you could try different drivers, could be that older or newer
drivers from ATI could do the trick. 

Then there's always the option of trying modded drivers. I always 
had decent luck with omega, though it's been a few years since
I've used them. He doesn't update like he used to, but still worth 
a shot.
http://www.omegadrivers.net/ati_winxp.php


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## Viabobed (Dec 31, 2004)

I am going to dry DNA drivers since he has Catalyst 8 with a hotfix for AGP cards. While Omega did it up to 7.3 without the hot fix.

I will let you know if it worked out. I am uninstalling the ATI stuff right now.


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## Viabobed (Dec 31, 2004)

Well here is an update, I finished removing the latest ATI Legacy drivers and I installed DNA's Catalyst 8.8 and voila!

I can now turn off my monitor when I no longer want to use it. I no longer have to have the fear that if I turn it off I will have to reset the computer to regain video.

Sweet. Lets see how these drivers behave.

Thanks again.


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## grimx133 (Jan 15, 2008)

Excellent news! Drivers can be such a pain at times.


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## davehaddad (Dec 29, 2009)

I have similar issues with nvidia with an ion board running on a plasma tv, need the sleep for screen burn in prevention. 
It's funny cause I can remote vnc and use the computer while the video card is still asleep, tried doing different things, like changing resolutions and such to wake it up but to no avail.
I have had issues with this on regular monitors too, as I am a big fan of the sleep mode for monitors and hard drives.


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## Atsa (Jun 3, 2010)

Hi Viabobed. I have had the very same problem for over a year now or even longer, I can't really remember. I noticed that I have the exactly same monitor - Dell 2408WFPb. I actually used to have until a while ago a GeForce GTS512, but coincidentally it went bad. I had a similar kind of a blinking display problem, for a times the display tried repeatedly go into power saving mode, especially if you had just turned on the monitor or resumed from power saving mode. It came and gone, but I never was unable to resume from power saving entirely. I actually got the display changed for a couple of times because of the random blinking power saving on and off problem. It did not make any difference. At the time I ran XP SP3.

A while ago, after the GeForce busted (maybe somehow related to the display and due to the Dell?) I got a cheap 4000-series Radeon and the problems pretty much remained the same. I'm actually running my backup system now due to my mobo being in warranty service and I'm running Windows 7 with Radeon 9600 Pro. These problems with the display are now much worse and exactly as you described. Whenever, and I mean whenever, I either turn off the monitor of it goes into power save, even for a blink, I can't get the picture back on. Not without turning the PC off or cold resetting. The Windows should be running normally on the backround figuring out from the sounds and functionality I try to do with input devices with the black screen.

As I now seem to have exact same specs as you are - Dell 2408WFP & Radeon 9600 - I'll try changing the drivers from Microsoft WDDM to Catalyst and see what happens!


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## davehaddad (Dec 29, 2009)

Working on some solutions now, have some third party apps, for making wake up calls to the pc, using remote vnc, I will post any results on the issue.


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