Screen saver freezes computer totally

[Guest]

This is new, recent, POST SP2, but not immediately, I think. I have a
monitor that occasionally thinks it's dying, which could be true. However,
when my screensaver comes on (set at 5 minutes), the whole PC freezes,
requiring restart. When I try to go to Display settings to kill the
screensaver, it freezes... I can change the desktop but not the screensaver.
When I tried to use Safe mode (F8 on startup) I got options to start with CD,
Floppy, current mode, or exit. Can't get to safe mode in any way, shape or
form. NOW how do I kill the screensaver? I'm using DSL. Windows XP. I'm
not afraid to do some slightly advanced tweaking, with good instructions, but
I'm really tired of having to reboot.

 

[Guest]

Update: I went in and tried changing my Theme to the Windows Classic, then
tried to change the screen saver to "none". That worked, and it stayed that
way. Now the test will be whether it 'reappears'. For now, that seems to
fix the problem. I would STILL like to know how to get into SAFE mode,
though...