Monitor only going to sleep intermittently

[Wayne]

For some time now my monitor on my window XP, with SP2, will not always go
into sleep mode. Sometime it will go to sleep, and at other times it will
not. Does anyone have any idea why this would happen? I checked for other
similar situations on this forum but I could not find anything that described
my particular situation. I have not made any changes to the power options. I
have it set for the monitor to go to sleep after 30 minutes. Any help
appreicated. Thanks.

 

[Bob I]

Mostly due to something operating in the background. Open Task Manager
and look at the processes runnin shortly after bootup, make a note of
what is there. THEN when the system should have gone to sleep but hasn't
compare the list in Task manager again. One of the "new" ones will
likely be the problem.

 

[Wayne]

Bob, thanks for your reply. I have checked the task manager in the past and
the only thing I see running there is my MSN mail-inbox-MSN Explorer and
Microsoft IE. I have always kept the two programs running and it never
interfered with my monitor going to sleep before. This started just a few
months back. I thought it may have been a Microsoft update or something thats
caused it. I have not made any changes to this computer for a long, long time
so it is not anything that I have done. Since it only happnens
intermiittently, it is hard to diagnose. I was hoping that it would be
something simple to figure out, but I guess there is not anything simple when
we deal with computers. Thanks again Bob.

 

[Wayne]

Bob, I am sorry, I missed the processes you mentioned in your post. I only
looked at the applications tab to see what was running. I will do what you
suggest. I have not counted them yet, but I would guess there must be nearly
30 items running under the processes tab. I will do as you suggested though.
Thanks.

 

[Bob I]

Check the Processes tab. There has to be something running at a high
enough level to keep Windows from being "idle" which is what is keeping
it from napping for you. And "simple", nope, not with all the stuff that
gets loaded on a PC today, I think "simple" went by the wayside when
"multitasking" was introduced.

 

[V Green]

This has been broken clear back to Windows 2000.

I tried for months to fix it. Multiple different computers.
Anything anyone does to fix it is only temporary and it
will eventually stop working again.

I fixed it once and for all with a MANUAL poweroff
app:

http://www.grc.com/wizmo/wizmo.htm

put a shortcut to a batch file to it on the dsektop,
click-click, monitor is off. No more BS.