Screensaver dies?

[Josef Wolf]

On Fri, Apr 02, 2010 at 02:49:16PM -0600, Karl Larsen wrote:
> On 04/02/2010 01:34 PM, Josef Wolf wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > I have installed ubuntu-9.10 on this acer travelmate 8371 in december last
> > year. I have configured the screensaver (black screen) to get activated when
> > the laptop display is closed.
> >
> > For the last four months, I had no problems with this setup.
> >
> > Today, in the morning, the trouble appeared the first time.
> >
> > I opened the display and had a black screen (the screensaver). But hitting
> > various keys did not help, the screen remained black. The keypad seemed to
> > be dead and switching to virtual console via ALT-F1 did not work. I could
> > login via ssh, but could not see anything unusual. So I killed the
> > screensaver. But this did not help at all.
> >
> > Then I rebooted, and anything appeared to work as usual.
> >
> > Then I closed the display again and moved the laptop around (removed the
> > power supply, maybe this has to do with the problem?). Now I open it, and
> > again, the screen remains black.
> >
> > In this situation, the laptop is totally unusable to me at all.
> >
> > Any hints?

Thanks for your reply, Karl!

>          I think your problem may be with the hibernate command. I know 
> with my laptop I have not had success with closing and opening it.

I have disabled hibernate completely, since this laptop is known to not
being able to wake up because of its broken BIOS.

> On 
> mine if I close it, it turns clear off! This is not good or bad. But it 
> still works fine. Also I never use a screensaver because they are 
> unneeded now.

Turns out to be a hardware defect. First, I thought it is a software problem
since a reboot fixed it. But this time, rebooting and power cycling don't
help. The screen remains black. So I'll ship it for repair.

Sorry for bothering the list, but at first, I really thought it is a problem
with the screen saver.