aeon screensaver somehow knows when I turn my monitor off

[lampshade]

Hello! I have used Aeon for a few years now, it's a great visualizer, but it's especially great for the screensaver. I have a desktop computer with a large monitor in the living room that serves as a kind of media center, and it looks cool when the aeon screensaver is running.

When I go to bed at night, I'm in the habit of turning off the monitor - I mean physically turning it off with the power button.

I had been running Aeon on an HP desktop with Windows 10 for several years. I would turn off the monitor with the power button when going to bed. Then when I wake up, I would turn the monitor back on, and the first thing I would see is the screensaver running, oblivious to the fact that my monitor had been switched off. That's how I like it.

I never want my computer to go into sleep mode, or for the OS to turn off the display, and I always set it this way in all the various power settings.

Now I have a brand new Dell desktop to replace my old HP, and it's running Windows 11. Just got it last month. And I bought a brand new copy of Aeon Platinum to install.

However, now the behavior of the screensaver is different. I turn off the monitor a night with the power button, in the usual way. But when I turn it back on in the morning, I don't see the Aeon screensaver running. I see a black screen, like the monitor is asleep. Then I move the mouse, and the desktop wakes up.

One reason this is a problem, is because when my monitor comes back out of sleep, I've been immediately getting some BSODs due to a driver from Total Recorder, some software I have installed. This is Total Recorder's fault. But on the other hand, I wouldn't be having this problem if my monitor wasn't going to sleep, which I don't want it to.

I want to get it back to how it was on my old machine. i.e. Aeon screensaver comes on, then I turn off the monitor at night, and then when I turn it back on, I will still see the screensaver doing its thing until I move my mouse. In other words, just because I switched off the monitor with the power button, I don't want it to go to sleep, and I don't want the aeon screensaver to be doing anything different than it would be doing had the monitor been left on.

This only happens with the Aeon screensaver. If I use one of the stock Windows screensavers, like "Ribbons", it behaves like I want. The screensaver comes on. I turn off the monitor. And then when I turn the monitor back on, the screensaver is still running until I move my mouse.

Looking at the Aeon documentation, I was excited to stumble on the "OS.PreventDisplaySleep" parameter in the Preferences (Screen Saver).txt file. I set it to 1, but alas, it made no difference.

Is there a way to get the Aeon screensaver to ignore the fact that I turned my monitor off, and just keep on running, and not actually put the monitor to sleep? It does seem to be Aeon that's doing this, because it doesn't happen with the other screensavers, and as I said, I have all my Power settings to never turn off the display, never hibernate, and never sleep.

Thanks for reading.

[BTT]

Hello lampshade

Thanks for giving a very detailed description of the problem you have with the AEON Screen Saver. You are not going to be very happy with my reply though.

SoundSpectrum have stopped updating all their visualisations for quite some time now. This means that all their programs work up to Windows 10. They have not updated their programs to work with Windows 11. Many users have experienced problems running SoundSpectrum products on Windows 11.

You say you have just purchased a new licence for AEON, in my opinion you should request a full refund.

Contact Brandon at SoundSpectrum Support:- https://www.soundspectrum.com/support/contact.html (Copy and Paste into your browser search)

Should you not receive a reply from him in say 3/4 days post back here and I will contact him on your behalf.

[lampshade]

Hi BTT,

Thanks so much for the reply. I'm not going to request a refund, everything seems to mostly work. Visualization works in RealPlayer 14 (!), and Winamp 5.666. Standalone Visualizer works, even in fullscreen. Screensaver works.

The only problem is the particular situation that when the screensaver is active, and I turn off the monitor, and then later turn it back on, the screen acts like it's asleep (all black). When I then move my mouse I was getting a BSOD on the driver from Total Recorder, called TotRec8.sys.

However, Total Recorder gives you choice of different types of drivers to use (or no driver at all). I reinstalled it with a different type of driver, and so far it's not crashing.

So I basically still have Total Recorder, and Aeon, and I can live with this.

Who knows who is at fault here, anyway? Could be:

Windows 11 (which is new and buggy)
NVIDIA graphics card/driver (which seems to think the Aeon screensaver is more like a 3D game)
SoundSpectrum (which unfortunately won't update their products for Win 11, as you say.)
Total Recorder, which also hasn't released an update to go with Win 11.

Thanks again for your help!

[juxtiphi]

Try resetting the power options for your computer. I too like to keep my computer from going to sleep. I have 2 extra hardrives running and windows would always turn them off no matter what I set the power options too. In the end I had to install a program called prevent disk sleep. This keeps my computer from shutting off. Make sure the power settings for your monitor are set to the way you want them.