Monitor power-down / screen saver question

Factual Questions
1

Not so much a computer problem as it is just something I’ve noticed and am curious about. At work, in an effort to conserve energy, they have our PCs set to power-down the monitor after ten minutes of idle time. For no apparent reason, I also have my screen saver set to kick in at fifteen minutes. (Well, yeah, there is a reason – it was set that way before they implemented the power-down, and I’ve just never gone in and turned it off.) The monitor powers back up when a key is pressed or the mouse is moved – the same actions that would cancel the screen saver.

Here’s what’s weird. Sometimes when I come back from lunch, I’ll set something down on my desk – say, my keys, or a can of pop. And when I do, the monitor will turn back on, yet the screen saver will still be running. I’m assuming the monitor kicks in because there was enough movement or vibration on the desktop that it caused the mouse to move enough to wake up the monitor. But wouldn’t that same amount of movement cause the screen saver to cancel? Is it possible that they are sensitive to different degrees of movement?

Also, there are times that I will come back to my desk after lunch or after being in a meeting, and the “locked desktop” message is still displayed – neither the screen saver nor the monitor power-down has kicked in, even though it has been much longer than ten or fifteen minutes.

So, why does my monitor do that?

(Oh yeah – Dell PC about three years old running Windows 2000. And I always lock my desktop when I’m away from my desk, if that matters any.)

2

I don’t know exactly why, but Windows 2000 does seem to be a bit odd with screen savers and power saving. I’ve seen the same conditions you have - bump the mouse and the monitor comes on, but screen saver’s still active, or the monitor power-down doesn’t activate.

I just attribute it to Windows being a bit confused at the moment.

3

I second gotpasswords. You’d think that computers would always work in a logical manner, but my experience is that it is often not the case. I chalk it up to the incredibly complex code in the OS. Winderz is weird.

4

I’ve had the same experience; no explanation. My WAG is that the code that detects a mouse movement or keystroke to wake up the screen isn’t passing that onto the screen saver, so it requires a second mouse movement to deactivate it.