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Herr Newton · Jun 28, 2001, 07:16 PM

Purchased a 17" ASD LCD to go with my new G4. I've got all the rave comments, but have one minor complaint: There doesn't seem to be a way to force the display to sleep without forcing the entire system to sleep. I thought it might be AppleScriptable, but the Finder's dictionary only has a generic sleep command which, of course, sleeps the whole system.

As it is now, I just keep the display set to sleep after 5 minutes and the tower to sleep after 60 minutes. But it would be nice to be able to sleep the display on command. (system is in the room where I sleep---I don't mind the pulsing lights, but having the LCD on for five minutes in the dark is not cool.)

Anyone have any ideas?

Han's Hands on Leia · Jun 28, 2001, 09:43 PM

A black screensaver.

Herr Newton · Jun 29, 2001, 01:09 PM

Originally posted by Han's Hands on Leia:
A black screensaver.

Better, but the display backlighting is still on.

spicyjeff · Jun 29, 2001, 01:54 PM

What's wrong with setting the system sleep time to never independently, and the hard drive to never independently, and then the screen sleep to something you desire.

That way when you choose sleep from the menu only the display will go to sleep and also it will go to sleep by default to the time you pick. The draw back is the system itself will never sleep but it kinda sounds like this is what you might want since you wan the display off but not the system. I have mine this way and its great since everything keep running but the LCD is completely dark (no backlight like with a screen saver).

Herr Newton · Jun 29, 2001, 02:56 PM

Originally posted by spicyjeff:
What's wrong with setting the system sleep time to never independently, and the hard drive to never independently, and then the screen sleep to something you desire.

Just tried it---for some strange reason, it put the machine beyond deep sleep and into a coma. It would wake on keyboard/mouse activity or when hitting either the power button on the display or the tower. I had to one-finger salute the restart button on the tower

(Going to ask Apple about this one... pressuming its a software issue.)

That way when you choose sleep from the menu only the display will go to sleep and also it will go to sleep by default to the time you pick. The draw back is the system itself will never sleep but it kinda sounds like this is what you might want since you wan the display off but not the system. I have mine this way and its great since everything keep running but the LCD is completely dark (no backlight like with a screen saver).

That would be nice (if it actually worked for me), but there's also times when I want to put the whole thing to sleep at once.

Han's Hands on Leia · Jun 29, 2001, 05:56 PM

Are you running PPPoE software? That can cause the wake up crash.

Herr Newton · Jun 29, 2001, 10:01 PM

Originally posted by Han's Hands on Leia:
Are you running PPPoE software? That can cause the wake up crash.

Nope. Ethernet direct to the LAN. And it's not a wake-up crash---it goes to sleep, and refuses to wake-up. At least when the display is set to sleep but the tower isn't. The display simply doesn't want to wake.

Han's Hands on Leia · Jun 30, 2001, 02:29 AM

Originally posted by Herr Newton:


Nope. Ethernet direct to the LAN. And it's not a wake-up crash---it goes to sleep, and refuses to wake-up. At least when the display is set to sleep but the tower isn't. The display simply doesn't want to wake.

How do you know that it is crashing when it falls asleep? Or perhaps it is waking and crashing?

I don't think I can help anymore though.

Cipher13 · Jun 30, 2001, 02:56 AM

Hmm... you can't just hit power on the monitor, can you?
Due to ADC and all... damn. ADC sucks.

Well, on iBooks and PowerBooks you can use the Energy Saver contro panel to sleep the monitor straight away, can't you?

Or is that the HD? I don't know. Well is that option available to you? Probably not...

I'd say the best option is a screensaver program called Darkside - I like apps better than background savers (easier to turn them off - just quit) - just set it to the black module. I'm sure the backlighting is tolerable for 5 minutes until it sleeps completely...

Herr Newton · Jun 30, 2001, 01:56 PM

Originally posted by Han's Hands on Leia:


How do you know that it is crashing when it falls asleep? Or perhaps it is waking and crashing?

As soon as it sleeps with the above-mentioned settings in the Energy Saver control panel, it stops responding to any sort of USB input, including the Display and Power buttons on the display. To me, this indicates a crash-while-attempted-wake problem

Cipher13 · Jun 30, 2001, 09:45 PM

Originally posted by Herr Newton:


As soon as it sleeps with the above-mentioned settings in the Energy Saver control panel, it stops responding to any sort of USB input, including the Display and Power buttons on the display. To me, this indicates a crash-while-attempted-wake problem

Dunno if this has been mentioned yet... but have you tried removing all peripherals except for the keyboard and mouse, THEN trying to sleep/wake it?

Even remove the mouse.

Oh, and what USB port is the keyboard in? It should be in USB port 1, straight into the computer.

Herr Newton · Jul 2, 2001, 04:09 PM

Originally posted by Cipher13:


Dunno if this has been mentioned yet... but have you tried removing all peripherals except for the keyboard and mouse, THEN trying to sleep/wake it?

Even remove the mouse.

Tried - no other peripherals on the bus anyway.

Oh, and what USB port is the keyboard in? It should be in USB port 1, straight into the computer.

Port 1 on the monitor, but the behavior is the same when its plugged into port 1 tower.

Anyway, it's not a huge problem---it sleeps/wakes fine when not set to the settings someone provided above.