Monitor won't turn back on after being idle

[etoiles.embrace]

I have a dell laptop running windows xp pro and recently I've found
that when I leave the computer idle for a few hours, whether the screen
is shutoff while the lid is closed or even if its left open, the screen
is blank (black, but still lit like it's on) and I can't make it show
my normal screen. It's obvious that the computer is still running, and
I can force it to turn off and when I restart, the screen comes back as
normal. My power settings are to never put the computer is standby and
to never turn off the monitor, so this shouldn't be happening. Any
ideas on what is going on here? I've seen a couple of other threads
with the same problem but no one seems to have an answer.

 

[peter]

Hibernate??

peter

 

[etoiles.embrace]

Hibernation is already turned off. Sorry, I forgot to mention that
before.

 

[NewScience]

Check to see if you also have Power Management at the BIOS level for your
laptop.
Reboot your laptop, and immediately go into your BIOS (either Del, F2, ...).
You need to determine since each manufacturer uses something different.

Once in you BIOS, look under Power or Power Management and see if it has
settings.

 

[etoiles.embrace]

Thanks for your help. I checked the BIOS area, and there are no power
management options that I can see that would cause this problem.
Another board suggested that maybe my screensaver is crashing and
causing the problem, so I just disabled it. Any other ideas on what
could be causing this problem would be greatly appreciated.

 

[NewScience]

How old is this Dell laptop? Have not seen any newer laptops/desktops from
Dell in last few years without some APM configuration in the BIOS.

How old is the BIOS? Did you check the Dell Support forum for your laptop
dealing with power management?