Windows 11 Screensaver / Display Sleep functions not working

Anonymous
2021-12-31T21:32:41+00:00

A few weeks ago, I can't remember exactly when it occurred (May have been after installing W11) my screensaver and display sleep functions just completely stopped working. I have tried every trick in the book. I have updated my BIOS and chipset drivers. Powercfg -requests shows an audio stream running from realtek, I tried overriding it but didn't solve anything. I confirmed every power option setting is correctly enabled. Basically I've spent extensive time googling and troubleshooting this to no avail.

The one thing that did fix it was running the DISM restore commands in CMD Prompt, however, it only works temporarily for the initial reboot after running that command, and then it stops working again if I reboot a 2nd time.

What can I do to fix this problem?

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Display and graphics

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-06-02T16:00:25+00:00

    I have the same exact SSD and I tried this firmware update (mine also hadn't been updated since purchase) and it solved the monitor sleep issue for me as well!

    However, this did nothing to solve the screensaver issue. The screensaver still will not engage unless I run the DISM commands, and then only continues to work until the next reboot. A curious note about the screensaver issue is it also sometimes works immediately upon reboot but then a few minutes later it stops. Perhaps some application is loading up and interfering with it?

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-06-02T02:06:29+00:00

    I have this same issue. Works after reboot, but then just stops and never re-engages. I tried every suggestion in this thread, and none of them resolve the problem.

    Following up: I was able to fix the issue on my end. This may NOT work for everybody, but for me it came down specifically to SSD firmware. Maybe it'll help somebody figure out their issues?

    TL;DR - My SSDs had out of date firmware. Updated the firmware, all problems fixed. Somehow.
    SSD Model: Western Digital SN 850 NVMe


    In Depth:

    My system had two specific issues:

    1. Monitor power savings mode would never reliably engage.
    2. Every once in a while all the icons on my desktop would blink a few times, but no errors/problems otherwise. Thought it was a visual glitch in Windows 11.

    However, when checking event viewer I was getting a repeating system error.

    Image

    Lists a device name of PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_7AC8 as the culprit (this is a random PCI-E port name). Thought this may be a motherboard error for a while, and tried every driver version possible. As a last ditch effort, I disabled the PCI-E root port in Device Manager juuuuust to see what happened. Turns out the port was tied to one of my NVMe drives. Decided to download Western Digital's Dashboard app to see if I was getting SMART errors or... something. Didn't know what to expect. No errors, but it flagged both my drives as having out-of-date firmware.

    Updated the firmware... and holy carp, both issues resolved. Power savings now works reliably 100% of the time, both monitors go into standby, AND the weird icon blinking issue stopped completely.

    Again, this may not work for everybody, but I've also never seen an SSD's firmware stop a monitor from doing its thing. So... I guess if nothing else has possibly worked, and even if you're not getting an error like the above, check and see if your SSD firmware is out of date. This may be a weird needle in a haystack solution, but it worked for me, maybe it'll help somebody else out.

    For ref: the original firmware on the drives was from when I bought the drives back in December 25, 2020. I don't have the original version number, but they hadn't been updated since I bought them.

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-06-01T16:13:01+00:00

    Tried this, did not fix it for me.

    Why did Microsoft stop replying to this thread, and when will there be a fix? I'm getting tired of manually setting my screensaver so I am able to keep my monitor on for USB devices.

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-05-21T07:35:04+00:00

    I had the same problem (screen saver, display off and even sleep not engaging automatically), but every solution posted here (or on any other website for that matter) didn't work for me. I unplugged everything from my computer, I changed every power setting, I ran sfc and dism, but nothing helped.

    What solved this issue for me is to install all optional driver updates through windows update. There were some HID drivers and something else, but after the updates screen saver and display sleep work as intended.

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-05-05T05:56:49+00:00

    I have this same issue. Works after reboot, but then just stops and never re-engages. I tried every suggestion in this thread, and none of them resolve the problem.

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