Windows 7 - How to keep audio output on when screen goes off?

Diesel Powered · 01-08-2011

I've searched and haven't been able to come up with an answer.

On my old vista machine I could keep streaming audio while the screen went dark after 10min of no use. On the new 7 machine, the audio goes off if the monitor goes off and comes back on after moving the mouse to wake the monitor. Is there a way around this? I'd rather not have the monitor on for hours at a time when I'm not sitting in front of it.

Thanks in advance!

fireberd · 01-08-2011

It sounds like the PC is going into a standby state, not just the monitor.

RIGHT click in an empty space on the desktop (screen) and then click on "personalize". Then click on "Screen Saver" and when the panel comes up click on "Change Power Settings". You can set it so only the monitor is powered off after whatever time interval you want.

Diesel Powered · 01-08-2011

That's a negative on the whole machine going to sleep. I've got it set to never sleep. When the monitor is off after 10min of no use and I move the mouse, the sound comes back instantly (actually faster than the screen lights back up). That's telling me that the live radio stream is still going in the background, but there must be a simple setting I'm missing somewhere that kills the actual audio output.

Anybody else?

fireberd · 01-09-2011

Thats the only place I know to set what the PC does or how it works when in whatever power save mode.

Mike Connor · 01-09-2011

Set the power controls to "High Performance", or set up a "Custom" plan, set the display to turn off "Never" and then switch the monitor off. That should keep the audio running. It works for me.

Check that your monitor itself is not set to sleep ( on the monitor, not on the PC).

Regards....Mike Connor

Sardonicus · 01-09-2011

I use winamp and stream all the time without a problem.
Check to see if your hard drive is powering down.

Screen saver: Blank
Wait: 10 minutes
Turn off the display: 20 minutes
Put the computer to sleep: Never
Turn off hard disk after: Never

frowous · 02-10-2012

This is an old thread but still shows up in searches.

A likely cause is that you are using the speakers on your monitor. Some monitors, like mine, switch off the speakers when they stop receiving the video --- so you lose the sound!

It's nothing to do with windows 7 as the audio is still being output if you route it to separate speakers.

Windows 7 - How to keep audio output on when screen goes off?

How to keep audio output on when screen goes off? problems?