Power Options keep changing

Hey everyone.

I go into my power option settings and pick ALways ON. Then I notice that it changes when I turn on a movie or any player like VLC. It always changes to turn monitor off after 15mins, turn hard drive off after 30mins. And the weird thing is that it changes the current setting. For example the Always on setting will be never turn off monitor, never turn off hard drive, but after i turn on a movie or clip in VLC that "always on" setting changes. I deleted all the other settings hoping that it would help, but it hasnt.

Any ideas?


I checked for viruses and spyware and all that jazz but nothing can be found. Plus I dont surf that much or download.

 

Hi,
It sounds like it's changing to a different user profile.
When you do your settings, do you click Apply - then Save - before you click OK ?

I don't know how "loose" you are with using the Registry,but you can check
the settings there as well.

Just some examples:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\PowerCfg\PowerPolicies\4 (Minimal power)
HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\PowerCfg\PowerPolicies\3 (Always On)
HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\PowerCfg\PowerPolicies\0 (Home/Office Desk)

IOW,every user listed should have "3" listed as the scheme.(Always On)
Under HKEY_USERS you may find several users.Check if all are the same.
You as Current User should show 3 as the powerscheme.
Just follow the path.

 

Thanks for the reply.

The first thing I tried to do was to create new power scheme. I named it New and set all the setting to "Never ". I then saved it and then pressed apply.

Soon after I went back into the power scheme section and found that the New scheme disappeared. It seems that my computer isn't allowing me to save a new scheme.

I also checked the registry and changed the values in the User section to which ever one was Always On. I changed the default and current setting values.

I then rebooted and the options in the power schemes had changed.

I also noticed that in the Current user registry setting, for power options, there are about half dozen power configs. If there are more than one of these schemes in the registry, then how come only one is visible in the control panle power management options?

Could this have anything to do with reformatting and installing the wrong drivers? I recently reformatted and started noticing it after the reinstall.

Should i format? Could it be just a back install of windows?

Thanks again for the reply so far.

 

Hi,
I double checked my own settings and while mine don't change,
my info was not completely correct.
I initially checked my settings in the Control Panel and then used RegSeeker
to find my settings in the Registry.
I picked the entry CurrentUser/Control Panel\PowerCfg\PowerPolicies\
and hit the right entry.

However,when going straight via the Registry Editor, I get several entries
just like you.You've got half a dozen or so, mine is worse - I've got 20
somehow the settings don't change on me though.
I'll be honest,this really threw me and at the moment I don't know
what is causing your change.

One other thing though, initially I set my power management settings
in the BIOS and I'm not sure how these settings effect subsequent settings
in the Control Panel.
Meaning: do they override user settings - because as I see it, the BIOS settings are System settings which may take priority over User settings.

Hopefully some one with more experience with this will set you and me straight
One question I should have asked rightaway, is, whether this is a laptop or a desktop and have you enabled laptop settings somewhere (if a desktop)?
Sometimes it's due to a wrong HAL.dll,but then you usually get the dreaded
HAL.dll error.
more on HAL here:http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309283
I would start with the BIOS and see if the power management settings are correct for your computer.