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[Steve Church <447728@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I've been having a similar issue in Debian Squeeze on my desktop PC.  I
think I just found a workaround not involving looping "xset dpms force
off" every 2 seconds.  I also think it's a problem with xorg; or perhaps
more likely in my case, a problem between my chair and keyboard.

I have an older NVidia video chipset and run the 173xx legacy non-free
driver.  I have a Wacom Graphire tablet for a pointing device.  I
installed Debian Squeeze without a GUI, then installed Xfce.  I do not
have gnome-power-manager installed.  Executing "xset dpms force off" has
been resulting in my monitor going into standby for a couple of seconds,
then turning itself back on -- even if I take the mouse off the tablet
and set it harmlessly aside.

I worked around it by commenting out some unnecessary things in
xorg.conf.  Now executing "xset dpms force off" successfully puts my
monitor into standby, as does Xscreensaver.

To do this, I commented out the Screen line in Section "ServerLayout",
as well as Section "Screen" and Section "Monitor" in their entirety.
Apparently xorg detects its running environment better at runtime than
it did with X -configure.  If I didn't have this Wacom tablet, I'm sure
I'd be fine with just the Section "Module" and Section "Device"
sections, and nothing else.  If I didn't care about glx either, I
wouldn't need an xorg.conf at all.

For what it's worth, when I first installed Squeeze, I had two video
cards.  My second was an old Riva128.  Try as I might for several hours,
I could get neither TwinView nor Xinerama to pick up my second display
with any combination of drivers, so I eventually just yanked the ancient
thrift store card.  Now here's the interesting part: I just realized
that my Screen line in section "ServerLayout" was (I'm guessing) still
written as though Screen0 were one of a pair of displays.  It has read
as follows:

        Screen        0        "Screen0" 0 0

This leads me to ask, could it be that this 2-second dpms problem is
affecting machines with un- or mis-configured multiple displays?
Laptops have an external display as well as the built-in screen, after
all.  I didn't bother Googling all the brands / models in this thread,
but it seems to me that at least the majority are laptops.  Therefore,
they probably all have a secondary display.

This suggests that a better workaround for some people might be to
disable the VGA port in the laptop's BIOS and / or trimming some fat in
xorg.conf.  I'll leave the research for my hypothesis to anyone who is
still having the problem.

-- 
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Desktop
Packages, which is subscribed to gnome-power-manager in Ubuntu.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/447728

Title:
  Laptop only remains DPMS off for 2 seconds

Status in Gnome Powermanager:
  New
Status in GNOME Screensaver:
  New
Status in “gnome-power-manager” package in Ubuntu:
  Triaged

Bug description:
  Binary package hint: gnome-power-manager

  Hi,

  I'm using fully updated karmic beta amd64 on a Dell Inspiron 1520 with
  gnome-power-manager 2.28.0 on linux kernel 2.6.31-13-generic.  I have
  it set in System>Preferences>Power Manager to always blank the laptop
  display when the lid is closed.  The respective gconf key is set to
  always use DPMS off mode to blank the screen and turn off the
  backlight.  However, the display only stays of for 2-3 seconds, then
  comes back on.

  I have observed that if I suspend or hibernate, after waking the
  display behaves normally.  If I kill gnome-power-manager, the display
  behaves normally.  [xset force dpms off] blanks the display normally.

  The display behaved normally under Ubuntu 9.04.

  Here is lshal -m  although, I am not sure this is still relevant due
  to devicekit. . .  This is the lid being closed, waiting for the
  display to incorrectly come back on, then opening the display:

  Start monitoring devicelist:
  -------------------------------------------------
  22:12:20.666: computer_logicaldev_input condition ButtonPressed = switch-videomode
  22:12:20.668: computer_logicaldev_input_5 property button.state.value = true
  22:12:20.669: computer_logicaldev_input_5 condition ButtonPressed = lid
  22:12:21.551: platform_i8042_i8042_KBD_port_logicaldev_input condition ButtonPressed = switch-videomode
  22:12:24.015: computer_power_supply_battery_BAT0 property battery.voltage.current = 12606 (0x313e)
  22:12:24.280: computer_logicaldev_input condition ButtonPressed = switch-videomode
  22:12:24.283: computer_logicaldev_input_5 property button.state.value = false
  22:12:24.289: computer_logicaldev_input_5 condition ButtonPressed = lid
  22:12:24.945: platform_i8042_i8042_KBD_port_logicaldev_input condition ButtonPressed = switch-videomode

  
  Here is lshal -m   with gnome-power-manager killed and X correctly handling the blanking:

  Start monitoring devicelist:
  -------------------------------------------------
  22:13:27.328: computer_logicaldev_input condition ButtonPressed = switch-videomode
  22:13:27.335: computer_logicaldev_input_5 property button.state.value = true
  22:13:27.337: computer_logicaldev_input_5 condition ButtonPressed = lid
  22:13:27.965: platform_i8042_i8042_KBD_port_logicaldev_input condition ButtonPressed = switch-videomode
  22:13:31.132: computer_logicaldev_input condition ButtonPressed = switch-videomode
  22:13:31.144: computer_logicaldev_input_5 property button.state.value = false
  22:13:31.145: computer_logicaldev_input_5 condition ButtonPressed = lid
  22:13:31.791: platform_i8042_i8042_KBD_port_logicaldev_input condition ButtonPressed = switch-videomode

  
  There is no difference I can see, so I would think that this further proves that the problem is with gnome-power-manager.

  If there is anything else I can do/test/post/try, please let me know.

  Thanks!

  ProblemType: Bug
  Architecture: amd64
  Date: Fri Oct  9 21:59:31 2009
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
  Package: gnome-power-manager 2.28.0-0ubuntu3
  ProcEnviron:
   LANG=en_US.UTF-8
   SHELL=/bin/bash
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-13.43-generic
  SourcePackage: gnome-power-manager
  Uname: Linux 2.6.31-13-generic x86_64

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