problem with xscreensaver, xorg and DPMS

[Dino Morelli <dino@ui3.info>]

The problem I'm having is this:

My system will almost never power the monitor off even with power management configured in xscreensaver. It's weirdly intermittant but almost never works as it should. In fact it seems to work right right after xstart or when I dink the settings in xscreensaver. But fails after that.

This started happening after some apt-get system updating I performed last November. The problem got much worse (almost never powers down monitor) after another upgrade in the past few days.


My system:

- Dell Inspiron 600M
- Radeon Mobility M9 using open-source xorg radeon driver
- BenQ 19" monitor on external port

To be clear: this is a laptop system. The lid is closed and I use an external monitor plugged into the VGA port.


Installed relevant software:

- Debian GNU/Linux testing (currently etch, I believe)
- xserver-xorg 7.1.0-10
- xscreensaver 4.24-5

All of this software was installed and confirmed up-to-date with apt-get prior to writing this message.


I have these things in my /etc/X11/xorg.conf :

-----
Section "ServerFlags"
   ...
   Option "NoPM" "true"  # This appears to have no effect at all.
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
   ...
   Option       "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
   ...
   Option "BlankTime" "3"
   Option "OffTime" "5"
EndSection
-----


Nothing seems to work at all with screen blanking unless I have the Section "Monitor" -> Option "DPMS" in xorg.conf

Everything else, like Section "ServerFlags" -> Option "NoPM" "true" and Section "ServerLayout" -> Option "BlankTime" "3" and Option "OffTime" "5", these are all ignored. It looks like xscreensaver takes over and blasts all settings from xorg.conf or any settings made with xset.


I can confirm that my system and monitor should be able to power down the video. The following works as expected, signal is terminated to monitor and it powers down:

   $ xset dpms force off


The only success I can get WRT screen power down on a timer is by completely preventing xscreensaver from ever running and using xset to set up times in my ~/.xsession. Like this:

   xset s 300 dpms 0 0 900


I've run out of ideas, can't find anything but other pleas for help on the web. I'm already very saddened at the thought of having to stop using my beloved xscreensaver. Let me know if I can provide more data from xorg.conf, logs, software versions or anything else.

Can anyone help? Thank you.


--
 .~.    Dino Morelli
 /V\    email: dino@ui3.info
/( )\   irc: dino-
^^-^^   preferred distro: Debian GNU/Linux  http://www.debian.org