Power setting keeps resetting monitor off to 20 minutes after restart

[turelpld]

Yes, before anyone asks, I have made sure that the power settings in control panel have been set to "never" under advanced settings.



About 4 months ago, windows decided to set my monitor shut off time to 20 minutes. The first time it happened, I figured it was a one-off thing, and set the monitor off setting back to "never".

Fast forward 4 months, and I have to turn the setting to "never" every time I start my computer.

I've even made custom power profiles, and every time I restart, the monitor off setting keeps going back to 20 minutes.

I've looked online for a solution, but all I've gotten is that it's a random bug that hits win7, and currently can't be fixed without reloading. I was hoping that one of you guys had a solution. Thanks in advance!

 

[soundguruman]

I'm not sure what age this computer is, but does the CMOS battery need changing?
I'm not sure what type of security you have , but did you try turning the security off while adjusting the power settings?
restart the computer and turn the security back on?
Did you try to create a custom power profile with you own monitor setting?

Reloading the OS is not a lot of trouble,
put the win 7 disk in and select "upgrade"
this reloads the OS without erasing your personal files. And, does not reformat the drive.
after that I would try leaving the automatic updates shut off for a while, and see if it's an automatic update that is corrupting the OS.
I shut my auto updates permanently. I use an all in one professional antivirus, and leave the microsoft updates. I find that this leads to a more stable system, and freedom from surprises that come along with automatic updates.

 

[turelpld]

I'm not sure what age this computer is, but does the CMOS battery need changing?

It's an i5 750 rig that I built last february.

I'm not sure what type of security you have , but did you try turning the security off while adjusting the power settings?
restart the computer and turn the security back on?

already tried it

Did you try to create a custom power profile with you own monitor setting?

already did, see my OP

Reloading the OS is not a lot of trouble,

Already reloaded/repaired in early Feb, due to a dx11 error.

This is a bug that microsoft knows about, and doesn't know how to fix. I was hoping that one of you guys might have a registry/ 3rd party software based solution. No worries though, I figured it wouldn't be able to be fixed without a full reload; I was just grasping at straws at this point.

 

[m1kegallacher]

Hello. I've had a somewhat similar issue with my power settings changing on their own although it wasn't every time I rebooted. It turned out the issue was being caused by a program called HD Tune (I use HD Tune Pro v5.0). Basically, HD Tune launches but then when I use it to run any kind of a disc check/scan/test it changes the monitor power off setting back to the default 20mins. It doesn't care if it's a windows generically installed power profile or a custom one I've saved. Whatever the present power setting is for the monitor gets changed to the 20min number. Weird! If it helps frame anything for ya I am running Win7Ultimate 64bit. Hope this helps and Good luck solving your issue.

Mike

Yes, before anyone asks, I have made sure that the power settings in control panel have been set to "never" under advanced settings.



About 4 months ago, windows decided to set my monitor shut off time to 20 minutes. The first time it happened, I figured it was a one-off thing, and set the monitor off setting back to "never".

Fast forward 4 months, and I have to turn the setting to "never" every time I start my computer.

I've even made custom power profiles, and every time I restart, the monitor off setting keeps going back to 20 minutes.

I've looked online for a solution, but all I've gotten is that it's a random bug that hits win7, and currently can't be fixed without reloading. I was hoping that one of you guys had a solution. Thanks in advance!

 

[dough13]

Good job finding this bug with hdd tune m1kegallacher maybe other programs may cause this to happen as well?
I can confirm that Hdd pro 4.6 changes the monitor settings back to 20 mins. I just set my monitor to shut off at 40 mins opened hhd tune did a quick error test stopped it b4 it finished closed hdd tune opened power settings and it was set back to 20 mins i repeated this bug 3 times in a row.. that is odd..

 

[dough13]

I can confirm that hdd tune 2.55 free does this as well.

 

[soundguruman]

You can set the entire OS back to default, which may eliminate these bugs...
put the win 7 install disk in the drive and select "upgrade." This does not erase your personal files or programs, but replaces the OS files.
Then AVOID any free software downloads...if you load free stuff from the internet, there's no telling what will happen.
Always use a professional security application, not a free one from the internet.
Avoid any "free" players, games, fixers, cleaners, scanners, etc...

Also, my personal preference would be to avoid anything but critical updates. Updates are known to corrupt the systems, but this does not happen on all computers, just some. I leave automatic updates turned off, and as a result have much fewer problems.

 

[n808]

Basically, HD Tune launches but then when I use it to run any kind of a disc check/scan/test it changes the monitor power off setting back to the default 20mins.
Mike

I thought for a while my computer was going haywire.. Could not figure out why monitor settings kept changing to 20 minutes. This is computer connected to a DLP HDTV and monitor can not be turned off by the computer. Thanks to your explanation (and Google), problem now resolved. It was indeed HD Tune Pro. Why the heck does it do that?

 

[nzpete]

Thank you!
I've had this problem, on and off ever since I built a new i7-4770 system ten months ago with Windows 7 on it. I could never establish why this was happening, although I didn't try very hard to find an answer until the last occurrence today, which was the straw that broke the camel's back. It all makes sense now; indeed, I had used HD Tune Pro (registered version) just yesterday.
I have had communication with the developer of the program regarding odd Health warnings being expressed for Seagate 4TB hard drives when tested with HD Tune (such air high Air Flow Temperature) that were not substantiated by the Seagate test software. The issue still hasn't been resolved.
I think I'll take the matter up with the developer as this behaviour is a nuisance and I can't see what useful purpose it serves.

 

[sushiserv]

Thank you!
I've had this problem, on and off ever since I built a new i7-4770 system ten months ago with Windows 7 on it. I could never establish why this was happening, although I didn't try very hard to find an answer until the last occurrence today, which was the straw that broke the camel's back. It all makes sense now; indeed, I had used HD Tune Pro (registered version) just yesterday.
I have had communication with the developer of the program regarding odd Health warnings being expressed for Seagate 4TB hard drives when tested with HD Tune (such air high Air Flow Temperature) that were not substantiated by the Seagate test software. The issue still hasn't been resolved.
I think I'll take the matter up with the developer as this behaviour is a nuisance and I can't see what useful purpose it serves.

I have actually do have HD Tune Pro installed, but this started occurring before I purchased the program.

 

[vickigh]

I found this site while searching for the same problem. Windows mysteriously kept setting the monitor sleep mode to 20 min. I had kinda figured it might be HDTune cause it started happening on both my Windows 7 and my windows Vista machines about the time I installed HDTune to track down a bad disk. Since it was not the only tool (and there were some inconvenient updates from Microsoft) I couldn't be sure. After reading this thread I confirmed that HDTune was indeed setting the sleep to 20 min.

Here it is 2014 and they still have not fixed this behavior so I decided to do so. I created a batch file that would run HDTune.exe and then run powercfg.exe (a Microsoft program) to reset the monitor time to (in my case) never.

==========================================
REM Run this bat file instead of the HDTune.exe file
REM a simple batch file to correct a very annoying problem with HDTune and
REM it's insistence on changing the sleep time for the monitor to 20 min.


"C:\Program Files (x86)\HD Tune\HDTune.exe"

powercfg -Change -monitor-timeout-ac 0
=========================================
I then saved the above file (without the ===='s) as HDTune.bat

If you want a different time you can run powercfg /help to get a description of how to choose other times.

I right clicked on the HDTune shortcut in the start menu and changed the "target" string from (in my case) "C:\Program Files (x86)\HD Tune\HDTune.exe" to "C:\Program Files (x86)\HD Tune\HDTune.bat" and set the program to run minimized to keep the cmd window from popping up.

Finally I moved the HDTune.bat file into the directory that has HDTune.exe

The above solution solved my problem except while HDTune is running. It will insist on the 20min sleep. But at least when you are finished the batch file will put the value back to the one you wanted.

A fancier solution would read and store what ever value was already there and put that one back. Which is what HDTune should have done.

 

[Gaia DeForce]

it's not a bug. you will find an option to turn off this from happening:

open hd tunepro, go to File\Options...
under General, uncheck "Allow change of power settings during tests"