DPMS power saving doesn't work

[mrpringle]

Hi,
I'm running XFCE4 and it seems the native monitor power saving options aren't reliable. I think I've noticed the screen will be suspended once, but not again until the system is rebooted.

I've decided to use the DPMS settings to suspend my screen instead of XFCE's settings, but I can't get my monitor to suspend by modifying xorg.conf.

In the monitor section I have DPMS enabled like so:
Option "DPMS"
and in the ServerFlags section:
Option "SuspendTime" "1"
Option "OffTime" "1"

This does not power off the monitor after one minute, but I can use the following command to power off the screen after n seconds of inactivity.
xset dpms n

So using xset works, but the xorg configuration doesn't.

Does anyone know what the problem is. I would much prefer to have the monitor suspend settings globally defined in xorg.conf.

Thanks

[jstead1]

There may be some confusion caused by setting the suspend and off times both to one minute.
_________________
jim

[mrpringle]

I tried omitting one of them and it still didn't work.

[jstead1]

it might be that xfce is interfering in some way
if you startx and use the default x window manager it might work.
At least then you can get a better idea of the source of the problem (xorg.conf or the interaction with xfce)
_________________
jim

[mrpringle]

[mrpringle]

bump

[dob]

I never managed to get the DPMS settings from xorg.conf to work so I put the following command in a script executed at start up by my window manager

xset dpms 0 0 360

[mrpringle]

Thanks, I also did the same thing, but I find it annoying that xfce can't get monitor power management working properly.