SOLVED Screensaver not working

[Todd P]

As per Hooday, I have an aquarium screen saver which I like to have running, because it makes my living room look like I have an aquarium! Contrary to what DavidHK129 says, screen savers are NOT a thing of the past. Many people use them daily because they are beautiful. Unfortunately, Windows 10 keeps going into sleep mode, even though the power settings are at Never / Never. I know I can manually make the screen saver come on by clicking the desktop icon, but when I had XP, it would just come on by itself. Why does Microsoft make things more complicated, instead of easier? Just getting to the Display & screen saver controls is a hassle now!

This thread is marked SOLVED - but what is the SOLUTION?!

 

[davehc]

Point to raise, though, is that it is misnamed. It does not, in any way, save the screen (usage, that is). In fact, quite the opposite.

 

[Todd P]

That was a useless reply, Dave. I am not the person who named these types of programs "screen savers". Wise up. EVERYONE (including Microsoft) identify these things as "screen savers". If you can persuade Microsoft to stop calling them screen savers, then I will call them by whatever else Microsoft calls them.

 

[davidhk129]

This thread is long and old enough.
Please read my post ......Screen saver in Windows 10.

 

[Todd P]

This thread is long and old enough.
Please read my post ......Screen saver in Windows 10.

I have already read this post. It begins with the canard that screensavers are no longer needed. That's not the point of our questions. We enjoy our screensavers - we just can't get MS to trigger them after a set period of time. The second comment is to adjust the power settings - but as I've already indicated, mine are set to sleep/hibernate Never/Never. Even so, Windows 10 goes into sleep mode, rather than triggering the screensaver. This thread is marked SOLVED - but there is NO SOLUTION to this problem.

 

[davidhk129]

Your frustration has clouded you.
I was trying to say, I have a new thread posted.
Title......Screen saver in Windows 10.

 

[Al Mastro]

my screensaver is currently not working in windows 10 and since its not working it wont let the display turn off or go into sleep mode. When I was using windows 7 the screensaver would work fine and ever since i upgraded it it will not work now. Just curious if anyone else has had this problem or not or if anybody has any suggestions on how to possibly fix it that would be awesome.

I had a similar problem with my screensaver. Mine would work sometimes and not others. If you have a wireless mouse turn it over and clean the optical sensor and also clean your mouse pad. Not exactly sure why but it worked for me.

 

[davehc]

That was a useless reply, Dave

You are too sensitive. lol.
No fingers pointed at you, as you were not the OP.
As Davidhk has already mentioned, the thread has gone on long enough. It was a personal thread observation/thought.

Perhaps it is an individual view, but, since the very first screensavers, I have not seen the point , or use of them. I for one, when I leave my computer, prefer it to merely close the screen. Unless I am in a position to sit and admire the pretty pictures, it would, from my point of view, be an unrequired waste of time.

 

[heartsound]

I am having the same issue with the screensaver, and from the multitude of posts from other forums, it is a system problem. That screen savers are not needed anymore is not the issue! Unless screen savers are detrimental the the function of the system, the use of a screensaver is customization of the desktop and up to the choice of the user. I "like" my screensaver, and as such want to use it. I am sure Microsoft will have a fix soon, however, I like being proactive. I did a SFC scan and it found some corrupt files. It also told me it could not fix those files. I also ran DSIM and found that while it wanted to fix the files, it could not find the "source" files. When I looked into resolving THAT issue I found very little information on Windows 10. Mostly windows 8 and 8.1 and then what was there was not very helpful.

I have been very happy with Windows 10, I think Microsoft has a winner here. However, as with all new and complex software, there are bound to be bugs. I look forward to Microsoft improving an already nice piece of software!

 

[Event_Horizon]

I was having the same issue and it also turned out to be a controller issue. In my case, though, I use my PC to charge my Playstation 4 controllers (due to convenient and powerful USB ports). Even though I don't use the controllers for anything and they just sit there and charge off of my PC it has the same effect; As long as any are plugged in the screen saver will *not* trigger. I unplug them, do the 1 minute test and sure enough it kicks in.

Hope the extra info helps!

 

[heartsound]

I was having the same issue and it also turned out to be a controller issue. In my case, though, I use my PC to charge my Playstation 4 controllers (due to convenient and powerful USB ports). Even though I don't use the controllers for anything and they just sit there and charge off of my PC it has the same effect; As long as any are plugged in the screen saver will *not* trigger. I unplug them, do the 1 minute test and sure enough it kicks in.

Hope the extra info helps!

I thank you for the thought, it may be the problem, however I do not have or use any game controllers on my machine. I do however have a USB KVM switch plugged into the machine. I wonder if like the game controller, the KVM switch is interfering somehow with the screen saver actuating. I may try some experimenting! Thank you.

 

[NoahLDiamond]

I found the problem to be my joystick. It wants to slightly twitch because that's what cheap digital joysticks do when they are idle, and Windows was recognizing that as activity. I unplugged the joystick and my screensaver and sleep went back to normal.

I too have that Logitech 3D Pro joystick. My problem started when I connected it, and it was the only hardware change. After solving this, I found this same solution on the first page.

 

[NoahLDiamond]

You are too sensitive. lol.
No fingers pointed at you, as you were not the OP.
As Davidhk has already mentioned, the thread has gone on long enough. It was a personal thread observation/thought.

Perhaps it is an individual view, but, since the very first screensavers, I have not seen the point , or use of them. I for one, when I leave my computer, prefer it to merely close the screen. Unless I am in a position to sit and admire the pretty pictures, it would, from my point of view, be an unrequired waste of time.

Two words.

"Flying Toasters"

 

[Event_Horizon]

I thank you for the thought, it may be the problem, however I do not have or use any game controllers on my machine. I do however have a USB KVM switch plugged into the machine. I wonder if like the game controller, the KVM switch is interfering somehow with the screen saver actuating. I may try some experimenting! Thank you.

It seems from the responses that USB devices of various sources are misbehaving in Windows 10 now and harming the screen saver and even timeout functions. I say unplug anything USB (other than your mouse/keyboard obviously) and see if it resolves the issue. I was wondering why I was seeing this intermittently and it turned out to be a result of charging random devices off of my USB. Very annoying... I am very curious to hear what your KVM test results in. I used KVM switches forever, and actually was considering to go back to one as I add another box to my desk... Let us know!

 

[Event_Horizon]

I found the problem to be my joystick. It wants to slightly twitch because that's what cheap digital joysticks do when they are idle, and Windows was recognizing that as activity. I unplugged the joystick and my screensaver and sleep went back to normal.

I too have that Logitech 3D Pro joystick. My problem started when I connected it, and it was the only hardware change. After solving this, I found this same solution on the first page.

I am not convinced it is any kind of twitching causing the issue but rather the way Windows 10 looks at input devices and searches for activity. As I mentioned in my case it was a PS4 controller (which is not even a valid input device for Windows without 3rd party drivers) charging on the machine. When I tested I set the timer to 60 seconds, made sure NOTHING was going on, including vibration which might set off the accelerometer, and it still would not work. Unplugging the device and POOF... Sounds like Microsoft needs to make an update to USB triggers, period. As a side note Windows 8.1 did not do this, so definitely new "functionality".

 

[NoahLDiamond]

Do you use any mobile phone charging utilities? Look for devices attached to the USB system that can wake the machine. Problems may be linked to USB 3.0 drivers and ports, or they may be from legacy ports.

 

[Joey B]

This temporary workaround worked for me to get my screensaver and sleep mode working!

I have a couple of Windows 10 Pro machines that were not having any issues with the screen savers, and a Windows 10 Home machine that was. I initially thought the issue must be a Windows 10 Home problem until I installed Windows 10 Home on a friend's machine and the screensaver worked perfectly for him.

I tried to find/update the hardware drivers for the video card with no success.

Then one night I stumbled into a 40 page thread of people talking about different things they'd tried to get their screensaver working on Windows 10. Most posts were failed attempts, but I saw a few talking about having some success with disabling X-Box, joystik and other gaming type of devices in Device Manager under the Human Interface Devices section.

IMPORTANT: Before disabling anything in the "Device Manager", be careful NOT to disable something like a "USB Input Device" or anything that contains the word "controller" as you could disable your USB mouse or keyboard. And if you're using a touch screen monitor and you don't have a mouse and keyboard, don't disable the "HID-compliant touch screen" device because you will not have an easy way to put it back. So just be careful.

I don't have an X-Box, joystick or anything with gaming on this particular Windows 10 Home machine, but thought let's see what's there. So I look in Device Manager under the Human Interface Devices section and I see a bunch of things like USB Input Device and other controllers and configuration devices, but two others caught my eye.

One was for the "HID-compliant touch screen" and the other for the "HID-compliant whiteboard". First I tried disabling the one for the touch screen, set the screensaver to 1 minute and waited and nothing happened. So I re-enabled the one for the touch screen and disabled the one for the white board (which i still don't know what the white board option is for on this machine) and waited and whala 1 minute later the screensaver started working. (See Attached Screenshot)

So in my case, disabling the "HID-compliant whiteboard" under Device Manager worked for me.

In conclusion, this may be a temporary fix until Microsoft can come up with an update that will resolve the issue permanently, and will vary from computer to computer, but it's worth taking a look at your "Human Interface Devices" or "HID" as they are commonly referred to, and see if you can find an item preventing your screensaver and sleep from working.

Hope this helps someone! Thanks

 

[JamesF22]

I have been looking for the screensaver fix for weeks now and finally came across one that worked for me.

step 1) open up device manager
step 2) Go to Human Interface Devices
step 3) Disable HID-Compliant white board.

this seemed to fix all my screensaver and power option problems.

Good Luck.

James

 

[OriginalPaladin]

So I just built a brand new desktop with a fresh, brand new install of Windows 10 Home - 64 bit. (Even had to go back to Best Buy and return my original version of W10 because they gave me the Spanish version). I have been trying to use The Matrix screen saver found at http://www.thematrixscreensaver.com/ for 64 bit systems. It worked fine for about 24 hours, then mysteriously stopped working. So I took to the interwebs to find an answer! So after reviewing this thread I was still a bit confused, because the only USB accessories I have are my Mouse, Keyboard and headphones.

Mouse: Razer Deathadder 2013
Keyboard: SteelSeries Apex
Headphones: Turtle Beach Earforce PX22

I finally realized that I had forgotten to update the drivers for my mouse so I headed over to Razer's site and ran their Razer Synapse program (Cloud based updater/interface) and it seems to have fixed the problem so far. I will update this if this changes in any way.

 

[Al Mastro]

I upgraded from W7 to W10 five weeks ago. That's when I began to have issues with my screensaver not activating. I have spent many hours over the past five weeks reading the many posts and trying the suggested fixes. None worked. My screensaver issue was very intermittent working sometimes and not working others. However I think I found out what was causing the problem. It seems when I closed my browser(Microsoft Edge) the screensaver would not time out and would not activate. When I leave my browser open or minimized the screensaver works. No idea why but so far today it's been working as it should. I'm cautiously optimistic about this work around(not an actual fix) and I'll see if tomorrow brings the same results.