I have an older HP laptop with Zorin OS 16.1 Xfce installed. For some reason the Settings tools Power and Screensaver have been UNABLE to stop the laptop from blanking the screen after 10 minutes of inactivity, even though it is running on AC power, and the settings are to disable power-saving and screensaver. The work-around that I have found is to use the console command xset as follows:
xset s off #turns off screensaver
xset -dpms #turns off the energy-star features
The following two commands do the opposite.
xset s on #screensaver on with default settings
xset +dpms #energy-star on with default settings
I've seen some online recommendations for using different options with xset, but they didn't work for me; the ones above did work.
I have not verified that these settings will survive a reboot; they may have to be re-entered after boot up -- that's not a bad way to have it, in case AC power is not going to be available. It would be nice to know if there is a way to get the GUI tools for screensaver and power to work correctly.
Check the BIOS, my older Dell, has power management including screen timeout settings, battery vs ac performance, blocking sleep, etc. in the bios
@seanhinkley -- Thanks for your reply -- what I found eventually was that I can use the xset command to set the amount of "idle time" before the screen saver will go into effect. xset -s 7200 sets it at 2 hours. I have to enter this command after each reboot, but that's OK because sometimes I might be running on battery, and then I like the default 10 min. idle time to be in effect.
I have and older HP desktop, and it is doing the same thing, is there a way to make it so that the screen never goes blank?
Thank you
Have you tried
xset -s 0 0
Also, Have you Checked the GUI settings first, Power Manager < Display?
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