Solved Screen saver not working

[lffoar]

Hi all,
has anybody had experience with the screen saver not working? Mine is set up to light up the screen after 10 min but it doesn't want to come out to play
Everything is set up OK in "personalisation", get the preview when I click on it but zilch action after the due time.

 

[Brink]

Hello lffoar,

Just to verify, but are you letting the computer sit completely idle for 10 minutes without touching it, the mouse, or keyboard? Any activity you do on the computer will restart the timer.

 

[DeaconFrost]

I had a coworker with this same problem, and it turned out to be her wireless mouse. Any chance you are using one of those?

 

[lffoar]

No, I leave it completely alone Brink.......don't even talk to it
Yes, Deacon, I do have a w/mouse but it has been on the comp since before this problem occurred....will try a different mouse tho' and see what happens.

Thanks guys

 

[lffoar]

Nope, tried another wireless mouse and a wired one as well....same result, no go. Dunno what it is about W7, little gremlins pop up from time to time.........Oh for the ol' days....dos, 3.1.........yeah right

 

[Brink]

Do you have anything connected to the computer other than monitor, keyboard, or mouse? If so, disconnect them to see if one of them may be the issue.

Do you have anything running on the computer that may be preventing it from going into screen saver mode? For example, like the program below.

RJL Software - Software - Utility - Stop Screen Saver

 

[lffoar]

OK, I tried going through services.msc to make sure nothing there was perhaps disabled, then tried Brink's suggestion and unplugged/uninstalled and/or disabled printers and other peripherals one by one. No change. Then I unplugged the w/mouse and uninstalled the driver, rebooted, plugged it back in, let Windows install a driver and everything works again!!!! Bloody computer, grrrrrrrrrr
Thanks again fellas, really appreciate the help we deadheads get from this site.

 

[Brink]

LOL, that's great news. I'm happy to hear that you got it sorted.

 

[DeaconFrost]

My coworker had a wireless mouse, and she'd leave her computer on all night...noticing the screen save would never kick on...even though it was set properly and ran fine when tested. We tried everything until she unplugged the mouse and put a wired one in (batteries died in the wireless one and she didn't have any on hand). She noticed the screen saver worked that night, but then stopped working once she switched back to the wireless mouse.

 

[boneycur]

I just had the same problem. To test the fix mentioned above, I unplugged my wireless mouse and the screensaver started working. So I changed the battery in the wireless mouse, plugged it back in, and the screensaver is working fine now.

Thanks for the tip!

 

[lexpres61]

Hi everyone. I had problems with my screensaver not working after only having my laptop for 2 weeks. I have Windows 7 Home primium x64.
I tried uninstalling the wireless mouse and that did not work. My automatic updater was trying to install driver software for my Intell HD graphics and each time it did the installation would fail.
I finally found out that the automatic updater could not install the driver if my pc was customized, which it was, so I had to go to the manufacturer's website, which in my case was Hewlett Packard.
I clicked on driver updates and entered the laptop model number and a list of available driver updates were given.
I downloaded a graphics driver. I restarted the laptop and what do you know! My screen saver was working again.
I don't know if this is the case with any of you here but hopefully I could help someone.

 

[michaelbeeinCO]

Good to know

I'm glad to know that windows 7 is so temperamental that something so small and minor could affect a fundamental (and what should be quite simple) feature of windoze...

I find my computer is no longer activating the screen saver, and I've not installed anything new in the last 3 months. (Verified by my installation log that I had set up as a data collection set!)

Changed batteries on mouse and keyboard (wireless), still not working. Now I guess I'll spend the next 10 hours going through each driver, uninstalling, and reinstalling. Good thing I'm a full-time college student, work 50 hours a week, have 4 animals and a busy wife to keep my occupied while I work on this windows stuff. I would hate to be spending my time doing what I actually need to do.

 

[sgmanohar]

Windows 7 Screensaver now working - SOLVED

In my case the culprit was Synergy.
The was running silently in the background.
Uninstalling synergy brought my screensaver back to life.

On the downside, synergy is a wonderful utility. Recommended to anyone with two computers e.g. laptop and desktop.

 

[pxfragonard]

I have a wired mouse and keyboard attached to a KVM switch that I use for two computers. I like to use a wireless mouse as well for turning off and on my TV player, which won't work with my WMP remote control. I also have a wireless keyboard/mouse combination for when my butt gets sore. It's a standing station. When my screen saver wasn't working I unplugged both remote hubs and reset the power plan to default, then changed them to my liking. I turned off the computer and unplugged it for 30 seconds. I rebooted and the screen saver worked. Then I plugged the key/mouse combo back in and checked in device manager that neither keyboard or mouse (under power management) had the box checked "allow this device to wake computer." Then I did the same with the other wireless mouse. Everything's working fine.

Don't forget to check power management under device manager.

 

[elmlouise]

pxfragonard, I use a wireless mouse also and found that I had to move the usb connector from one port to another and all of a sudden the screensaver started up again. hope this helps.

 

[casualObserver]

had the same problem today. system is Dell Optiplex 745, duo core with Win 7 Pro. Screensaver setup: theme was United Sates (30 min rotation), screensaver: mystify (5 min). display logon screen not checked. after perusing many blogs re this problem, decided to change wallpaper. changed to windows 7 basic and changed screensaver to 2 min. it worked fine!!?? went back to original configuration...and it worked as original, just fine. not sure why this happens. glad i didn't download files or make registry changes before trying this.

 

[pxfragonard]

had the same problem today. system is Dell Optiplex 745, duo core with Win 7 Pro. Screensaver setup: theme was United Sates (30 min rotation), screensaver: mystify (5 min). display logon screen not checked. after perusing many blogs re this problem, decided to change wallpaper. changed to windows 7 basic and changed screensaver to 2 min. it worked fine!!?? went back to original configuration...and it worked as original, just fine. not sure why this happens. glad i didn't download files or make registry changes before trying this.

Yeah, don't do registry changes unless you really understand what you're doing. Keep it simple. Solutions often are. You can use any image on your computer as the background image btw.

 

[MourningStar]

yeah, this is one of those anomalies I run across now and then. In my case, a re-boot has usually fixed it. Sometimes it just fixes itself. I'm just a driver, not a mechanic so I don't sweat these gremlins too much. As a safety measure I have my background set to slide show mode.

onward ...

 

[Cabernet]

I have a wireless mouse/keyboard but sometimes my screensaver works. After reading what others said about programs running in the background I shut down Windows Media Player (I listen to music through my computer) and got my screensaver back.

 

[Cabernet]

Further searches regarding Media Player and Screensaver yielded these results: right click bottom Media Player screen to get list including "options". Click on Options.