Minutiae

[athelind]

Phone rings. Your Obedient Serpent doesn't recognize the number.
Accented Voice: Hello, who is this?
athelind: You called me. Who are you trying to reach?
Accented Voice: I'm sorry, I must have the wrong number.
athelind: Quite possibly. Have a nice day!

---

The Windows Screen Saver has always been kind of erratic. It's sort of my canary in a coal mine. I'm the only person I know who has logoff/logon sound files set up; when they refuse to play, I know something's gone hinky somewhere in the deep recesses of XP. Sometimes, the screen saver just won't kick in. It's random, erratic, and unpredictable -- or at least it was until the most recent Windows Update.

Now, it's not unpredictable at all. It just doesn't work. The Screen Saver won't kick in, at all, no matter how long the system has been idle. The Power Management won't take over and shut down the monitors.

This may have something to do with my shiny new video card and dual-monitor setup, but this ran happily for several weeks with only the usual gamut of screen saver glitches -- right up until that Update.

I've changed settings in the Screen Saver and the Power Manager. I've changed to a DIFFERENT screen saver. No joy, no luck, no change: I can walk away from my system for an hour, and come back to Bright Glaring Images Burning In Merrily.

I know monitors aren't nearly as susceptible to burn-in as they were a decade and a half ago, but it's still annoying. And having at least that token password protection that the screen saver provides is kinda nice.

Are any other XP users having this problem?

Mac and Linux users are cordially invited to refrain from contributing to this conversation.

Comments

[araquan.livejournal.com]

My favorite phone company foible is when they connect me to someone else, randomly. The phone rings at both ends, and we both pick up... And each accuses the other of having made the call.

This has happened a number of times over the years. Sometimes it's unpleasant, sometimes it's amusing. I wonder if this is some form of phone company personals service that I'm not aware of...

[twentythoughts.livejournal.com]

Yeah... The logon/logoff files occasionally don't play at all. Once, the sound had just turned off. Then again, this is a laptop, so it's a slightly different situation.