Monitor never suspends on G4 Mac Mini with Sony Flat Panel

[Shyamal Prasad <shyamalprasad@verizon.net>]

Hi folks,

I have a very straight forward Debian etch installation on a G4 Mac
Mini.

One issue with X (xorg) is that the monitor (a Sony flat panel, SDM
S204) never seems to go into the sleep state. The screen seems to
blank and all, but the monitor continues to run at full power.

If I issue an 'xset dpms force standby' (or sleep etc.) the screen
blanks, but the monitor continues to run at full power. 'xset q' shows
DPMS being on.

Under Mac OS X I do not have this issue, the monitor goes into a low
power state when the screen blanks.

>From xorg.conf, some relevant bits:


Section "Monitor"
        Identifier      "SDM-S204"
        Option          "DPMS"
        HorizSync       28-75
        VertRefresh     57-63
EndSection

Section "Screen"
        Identifier      "Default Screen"
        Device          "ATI Technologies, Inc. RV280 [Radeon 9200]"
        Monitor         "SDM-S204"


The only other data point I have is this: I used to have this monitor
hooked up to a dual G5 tower and I had the same problem when running
Linux. So perhaps it is the monitor. Both systems were running a
2.6.16-1-powerpc[64] kernel.

Any ideas on how to fix this?

Best regards,
Shyamal