Computer won't shut down if monitor....

is turned off first. Seriously. If I click and tell the computer to shut down and then turn off the monitor the computer won't shut off. I will come into work the next day and the tower will still be running. If I turn on the monitor the screen comes up blank and I have to reboot the computer.

If I shutdown the computer and leave the monitor on the computer will shut itself off after 30-60 seconds.

Any ideas?

 

Monitor standby mode should be fairly safe and only use a few watts of power. Monitor life won't be shortened if you leave it on but allow windows to shut it down to standby mode (amber or flashing L.E.D. indicator).

But your problem could be a few things. Make sure that your monitor is correctly detected by brand and model in the monitor properties area, and not simply as a standard, or plug and play monitor etc. This could?? have a bearing on how windows detects the connected monitor. Also make sure your graphics card drivers are up to date. An older graphics card may not support what your asking. But installing later drivers if available may help?

 

Check the system info. The computer recognizes the monitor, and I have the latest drivers. So I guess we can just chalk this up to something weird that my computer does.....

 

Hi Hex92,
There's always a valid reason why it does it, but depends on how desperate you are in wanting or needing to correct it? Maybe try another graphics card, or it could be BIOS and/or ACPI related. If the PC shuts itself and monitor down to standby then should be OK. For safety you can always turn the monitor completely off, if you're going away for a few days etc. Even a reformat may correct it, but that's a drastic measure.

 

Hex,

It sounds like your video card, or motherboard/power management BIOS is pending an I/O request to toggle the monitor into the proper power mode.

If you do decide to troubleshoot it i'd recommend
a) disable power management, APM etc..
b) get the LATEST video card drivers availible
c) update your bios to current spec
d) make sure you are current from windows update.

These are not always something that can be fixed in software, sometimes its just a quirk of the hardware.

A great site for this kind of troubleshooting: Search for 'powerdown issues" halfway down the page
http://aumha.org/win5/a/shtdwnxp.htm

 

Certainly is a good resource site Ben. Thankyou, will keep this one in the Favs,