Interesting Problem with Screen Saver

[Dave Schwartz]

I have an older machine, running Windows XP.

It is a NOC machine and so it is on 24-7 for months at a time without reboot.

The screen saver is set to come on after 10 minutes.

As I sit at my desk, I watch the screen saver kick in and then within a minute or so, disappears. 10 minutes later it is back.

Does anyone have any ideas what could cause this?

[JustRalph]

I have an older machine, running Windows XP.

It is a NOC machine and so it is on 24-7 for months at a time without reboot.

The screen saver is set to come on after 10 minutes.

As I sit at my desk, I watch the screen saver kick in and then within a minute or so, disappears. 10 minutes later it is back.

Does anyone have any ideas what could cause this?

What do you mean "disappears"

What's on the screen when it disappears?

[Dave Schwartz]

Sorry. LOL - I always tell people to clearly explain themselves. I should take my own advice.

The normal screen returns.

[PaceAdvantage]

Maybe a minor earthquake jostles the mouse imperceptively and thus causes the screen saver to disappear? ;)

Or maybe you got nosed out of a nice exacta and you pounded the desk.... :lol:

[JustRalph]

Maybe a minor earthquake jostles the mouse imperceptively and thus causes the screen saver to disappear? ;)

Or maybe you got nosed out of a nice exacta and you pounded the desk.... :lol:

Mouse vibrates just enough?

I might suspect the network card might be waking it up too.

You might be able adjust that in the driver settings.

I know this might be a little offbeat considering it's a noc. Try unplugging the Ethernet cable to determine if it's an outside source polling the machine and waking it up.

Could be even noise on the network from another machine. Some older cards will actually "broadcast" depending on network settings. This can actually wake a machine. Haven't seen this problem in years......but I know you have a complex setup. Just throwing it out there. External hardware can do it too. Windows actually does hardware checks and polling depending on what's running in the background. Most of the time that's printer related or some USB device. Maybe adjustable too.

http://www.google.com/search?q=network+card+broadcasting&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en

[Dave Schwartz]

Thanks for the ideas, Ralph.

Whatever it is, is brand new. My biggest concern was some type of Trojan or something. However, the internet is never browsed on that computer (except for grabbing files from HDW), there is no email, there is no direct access from the web (behind a Linux firewall with NAT), and, in general, is just isolated.

However, it does have one job: To copy files across the network after they are downloaded from HDW.

Now that I think of it, there are always programs that "phone home," like HP. This machine is also our print server. And there is a virus checker on it that updates daily.

Today, after it it finished with its early duties, I am going to reboot it and see if anything changes. Maybe it is something simple.