My Brother-In-Law has a Dell Computer running Windows XP. This morning he turned on his computer and went to take a shower. When he returned, the monitor was with a black screeen with the words: Monitor is in Power Saving Mode. He has tried everything to bring it back to normal, but to no avail. Any help here?
There should be a setup button on the monitor. You should be able to cycle through the menu and turn this off.
Thanks Mr. Blue Sky… I will relay this to my BIL.
This doesn’t work. Nothing happens. Next??
Try this:
START>Control Panel>Power Options
See what the “Turn off monitor” setting is. Mine is set to “never”.
He cannot see this screen because all he has is the black screen with “Monitor is in Power Saving Mode.”
He may have to reboot and try it then.
He has rebooted, turned the monitor off and on again, checked his cable etc. The only thing he cannot find is a reset button on the monitor to reset it to factory specifications. Seems like there should be a reset button. I am going to go to his home about 5 or 6 this afternoon to see if there is something I can do.
If his monitor cable (not the power cable) is detachable, try swapping it out with a new one. These cables sometimes go bad.
If your monitor cable is permanently attached to the monitor, try to get a hold of another monitor to see if it works.
If that doesn’t work either, you have some kind of problem with the computer itself. Maybe the video card?
Well, as I said before, I am going there this afternoon and will check out all of these things. Many thanks for your help.
If you haven’t already planned on doing so, bring another computer and cable if you can, so you can see if it is indeed the cable or the graphics card/computer.
I suggest unplugging the power cable from the monitor and leaving it overnight. Most modern monitors have little embedded firmware-driven computers in them that can get stuck in a bad mode due to power spikes and other transient electrical phenomena. Like VCRs, these little embedded computers have a certain amount of memory backup, to keep settings in place when the device is moved. Depending upon the design, they can hold settings for a few hours to several days, and unfortunately, these settings can include bad modes and other unintended operating conditions. It may not work, but it’s worth a try. I’ve fixed a fair number of “broken” pieces of equipment this way.
I think the computer went into low-power or sleep mode, not the monitor.
Some of the Dell desktop systems in my office go to a power-saving mode after twenty minutes or so. When that happens, the power button on the computer itself blinks on and off. Simply depressing it briefly wakes up the computer. At worst, disconnecting power to the computer and reconnecting it should cause it to start up correctly.
Something to try is to press the button on the monitor for the settings menu. If that displays, there’s nothing wrong with the monitor (probably).
My Brother-In-Law’s monitor came back to life without any intervention. It was a strange event. I do not know what happened, but I expect that it was the computer in some sort of sleep mode. I didn’t go to his home because he told me that it was working and didn’t need me to look at anything. So goes the world of electronics. Thanks much anyway for all of your support. It is good to know that all of you are there when we need you.