It's always ME, ME, ME, isn't it???:-lol Why couldn't it be YOU, YOU, YOU this time!!! Oops, it is YOU!:-lolBraun, have you tried putting the WinXP CD into the drive and do a recover/repair. I doubt it will work, but who knows.I remember doing a Win98 to Win98SE using a CD from Microsoft. My computer would never shutdown properly. Eventually, I reformatted due to some nasty virus my son downloaded and reinstalled a fresh copy of Win98SE. Shutdown problem fixed. Those nasty upgrades will "byte" you every time. Somewhere there is a bit set to "1" when it should be "0" or vice versa and it ain't gonna reveal itself for you to fix.

>It's always ME, ME, ME, isn't it??? Why couldn't it be YOU, YOU, YOU this time!!! Oops, it is YOU!Drat...you've caught me now. It WAS me! (sob)No, I've not tried a recover/repair, but thanks for the brain-tickle. I can always just reinstall the OS, over top of itself. If that don't fix it, I've got Drive Image 2002 (Must have tool. Download from their site, get it TODAY!) to put things back in order.As to upgrade...no argument here. I should have done a clean install, rather than an upgrade, but I was lazy and did not want to loose all the programs I had already installed. (by loose, I mean having to reinstall). I've paid the price, so it seems.Thanks for the ideas. Keep em' coming please!Cheers,bt

Braun,Your right, something is prohibiting XP from going into the screensaver. I've noticed that there are some programs that will hold control over the screen like this, a good example would be a game. I'd kill all apps running in your system tray and see if things start to work from there.Of course, if you want to start throwing darts, use MSCONFIG (yep, it's still in XP) and unselect questionable applications. BUT BE WARNED, there are programs in there that you may need for the system to function correctly. Eventually you should be able to narrow down the culprit.Good luck!

Hi Braun,Drop me an e-mail at [email protected] have someone's e-mail for you that might help.Thanks,Bruce.

Thanks Tom...I've already done some of that, but not yet gone through "piece by piece" and killed task after task after task.One of the reasons I've not given this suggestion due diligence is this, and I'm looking for your opinion here. If a background process was preventing the screensaver from activating, do you not think it would prevent it from staying active? IOW, I can start the screensaver manually, and it will run for hours. Just won't run by itself.Your thoughts?Best,bt

Thanks Sherlock, errr...I mean Mr. Holmes! :)Cheers,Moriarty

Hey Braun!I just had a thought (and that a stretch for a retiree!)!! If you would leave your computer more than 10 minutes, maybe your screensaver would work!!!:-lolThought (another thought, oh my head aches!!) I would keep this thread going! Up to 21 now!!!Bill

Hey Bill...I read your post and for about 30 seconds, I'm thinking, "well, of course I've left longer than 10 minutes, and hey I can set the timer to 1 and it still don't work", then, just as I was going to type this in reply, I "got it"!Thanks for the laugh!!! :) :) :)bt

Well, upon your invitation I thought I'd take a shot.Assuming that you've check all background processes for activity and that wasn't the problem, if I had to take an educated guess I'd bet its due to the flaky ACPI issues that XP has. There seems to be a lot of problems with various motherboard BIOS's and WinXP's ACPI implementation.However, if you'd like to check the startup apps without pain to verify you've caught all background processes, a good utility to do so is Startup Control Panel from Mike Lin:http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtmlWith the utility, you can easily see all of the startup background utilities on your system (either from the Start Menu or any of the registry locations) and optionally disable them through checkboxes. As a bonus, it allows you the ability to move all of the hidden startup programs to your standard StartMenu-Startup group... Its good to be fully aware of what gets started on your system. With this feature, it also allows you to hold the SHIFT key down to disable all startup programs when Windows loads as necessary.Here is Microsoft's explanation of the timer used to activate screensavers and standby mode:"Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) places the computer in standby only after the CPU has been idle for the specified period of time. When a 3D screen saver or background process starts, the CPU is no longer idle, and the ACPI timer for standby is reset."So checking on any and all of your background apps would be my first step. Another related culprit that interferes quite often is the "Indexing Service" which is enabled by default on XP (and is a fully useless service in my opinion). Try disabling this service from Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Services.If it ends up none of the background programs or services are the culprit, then indeed give some serious attention to a possible ACPI issue. If you look in Control Panel, System, Hardware, Device Manager and expand the Computer tree, you'll see if your system is setup as an ACPI client or not (it'll say: "Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) PC" if so). An option is to revert your XP install to ignore its ACPI abilities. Since you are not running on a laptop, you'd probably not miss the features anyway, such as Hibernation.Hope something here pans out,http://members.rogers.com/eelvish/elrondlogo.gifhttp://members.rogers.com/eelvish/flyurl.gif

I don't know if you noticed this recent post in the MS forum:http://ftp.avsim.com/cgi-bin/dcforum/dcboa...orum=DCForumID8Could be a possibility. Too bad no one seems to know how to get DirectX 8.1b installed into XP yet.Dan

Hi thereIs this what you are looking for?http://support.microsoft.com/search/previe...b;en-us;Q306676As the link doesnt work properly copy and paste the above line into your browser Craig Kiltie

Looks like the fix Dan, unfortunately, the 8.1b install fails on XP.Thanks for the heads up, they say it is coming in a SP soon.Cheers,bt

Hi Craig: Well...I don't know! My problem is kind of the opposite, my PC will not activate the SS's via the timer. Once they are on, they stay on. What I've done in the meantime is put a link on my desktop to start the SS.I've looked at this article. I guess I COULD try it and see if it helps. If I do, I'll let you know. Thanks for the pointer!Best,bt

Hi Braun,Finally took the time to read through this long thread. I have some experience that might help you down the correct path, although it won't solve your problem outright. When I first started using dual monitors, I operated them off of AGP and PCI cards. When I did this, my screensaver would not activate either. However, now that I run both monitors off of a single card, the screensaver works fine. I don't know if you run a single monitor or dual, but maybe this will give you an idea??

Single...sigh. Many common points of connect to my problem. Upgrade from ME, DX8.1 upgrade. ACPI. Saitek Drivers. All are potential, but not in my case. My SS still fails, even after checking all these possibilities.Perhaps I will just have to Nuke and Pave if I want a good XP install. Not so hard to do when using Drive Image. I can build for a bit, save, and come back at another time. That is probably the route I'll take, someday.Thanks for the tip!bt