Solved Screen saver not working / display does not turn off automatically

I have only started having an issue with this in the past couple of months. Previously, my display would turn off after the selected time as it should. Same with the screen saver. Now, neither function at all. I've tried various solutions online and no luck. I bought a Valve Index VR headset a couple months ago, and suspect that it might be interfering in some way. Perhaps keeping the PC active even when idle in some way to prevent it from displaying the screen saver or turning off the display? Do you guys have any ideas? Thanks.

Kreeep said:

I bought a Valve Index VR headset a couple months ago, and suspect that it might be interfering in some way.

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It's easy enough to prove. Try turning the headset off. If that doesn't work try disconnecting the headset from graphics card and usb port to see if display turns off and screensaver comes on when it is supposed to.
Once you definitely prove it's the source of the problem, you can troubleshoot accordingly. A web search showed a number of complaints from people that using this and other VR headsets affected sleep and monitor settings. Many found that Steam was keeping their monitor on. One interesting thread in the Steam community found that disabling Nvidia High Definition Audio device in the device manager solved the problem. Steam preventing sleep (not store page videos) :: Help and Tips

Thanks for the help and advice. Through your link, I found another link with people having this issue who are using Alienware monitors. Steam being open with or without Nvidia High Definition Audio device enabled made no difference for me. Ending any Alienware related task in Task Manager fixed the issue, so I've uninstalled the drivers and everything is working now. I think it has something to do with Windows attempting to install its own Alienware driver over the top of Alienware's.

Good to hear you found the problem. Thanks for posting what fixed it. It would be helpful if you would mark your thread as solved. (there's a box right under the title)

FYI, in case you are interested because you are working with a screensaver:

You may have noticed that you can't get the screensaver to display on the lock screen. This is because the lock screen is only displayed for one minute before the screen is turned off. By default, there is no way to alter that in the GUI. To resolve this, follow these steps:

1) Open an elevated command prompt and run this command:

REG ADD "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\PowerSettings\7516b95f-f776-4464-8c53-06167f40cc99\8EC4B3A5-6868-48c2-BE75-4F3044BE88A7" /v "attributes" /t REG_DWORD /d 0x00000002 /f

This will expose a new option in the Windows GUI that was not there previously.

2) Next, do either one of the following:

A) Open Control Panel > Power Options > Change plan settings > Change advanced power settings

or

B) From your command prompt run control powercfg.cpl,,1,

Either of those two options will take you to the same place in Control Panel.

3) You should be looking at the Power options Advanced settings window. Navigate to Display and expand it. You will find that a new option, previously unavailable, is now there: Console lock display off timeout. So long as the timeout you set here is less than the time for the screensaver to kick in, you will now be able to see the screensaver on the lock screen.

Let's take an example:

Let's suppose that you set this to 60 minutes, and you set the screensaver to turn on after 30 minutes. Now, lock the screen. After 30 minutes the screensaver will kick in and it will be visible up to the 60 minute mark at which time the screen will be shut off.

Hope that this is helpful!

Oh cool. Thanks for all of that. I don't use a lock screen though, but if I do decide to I'll keep it in mind.

glasskuter said:

Good to hear you found the problem. Thanks for posting what fixed it. It would be helpful if you would mark your thread as solved. (there's a box right under the title)

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I mean, uninstalling the Alienware software is a solution I suppose, but it just creates a new problem. No Alienware software But yeah. It's solved enough. If I need fancy lighting in a modern game, then I'll put the Alienware software back on temporarily.