Another Mac question

[Chippygeoff]

Hi Guys. Two weeks ago I replaced my aging i Mac with a mini Mac 2. I bought an Asus 27 inch monitor to go with it. As I don't have a TV set I also bought a blu ray player, a DVD re-writer and I have a 1 terabyte external back up drive. I have used all the USB ports on the back of the mini Mac and have a USB hub using two of the ports. I have had many problems and managed to get them all resolved but there is one problem I cannot get sorted. The screen saver won't come on. If I change the settings it will come on just once and then not work again. My son suggested it was the wireless mouse causing the problem so I changed to a wired mouse, again the screensaver came on just once and then refused to come on again. My son now suggest I have to many USBs connected so i have just ordered a powered USB 7 port hub hoping that will help. Any ideas anyone on what I can do to get the screen saver working. many thanks.

 

[petermillard]

Not teaching granny to suck eggs, I hope, but the screensaver settings are found at System Preferences > Desktop & Screen Saver > Screen Saver tab > choose an option from the left-hand pane, and select a “start after…” time from the menu at the bottom.

Not sure why USB would interfere with this, unless the monitor's connected by USB (??) - presumably you're connecting through HDMI though? Does the monitor have power-saving features enabled?

FWIW TFT panels are a lot less prone to 'burn-in' than old-style CRTs, so screen savers aren't so necessary - unless, of course, you want e.g. a slide-show of holiday photos...

In case you weren't aware, you can switch the screen off via the Apple keyboard with CRTL + ALT + EJECT

HTH Pete

 

[Limey Lurker]

Disconnect everything, then reconnect things one-at-a-time, each time checking that the screen saver is as it should be.
DON'T spend any more money until you have confirmed you need to!

 

[Chippygeoff]

Many thanks everyone. Pete, Yes, I did go to system preferences and set the screen saver and yes I am connesting through HDMI. Thanks for the keyboard shortcut. Limey. What I have done this morning is to disconnect everything non essential including the back up drive. I then re-booted in safe mode and now everything is perfect. I re-set the screen saver to one minute and it came up every time. I feel the problem is in the back up drive, that was used with my old i Mac and has years of stuff on it. I think the solution would be to wipe the hard drive and the external drive and start again. Many thanks once again.

 

[RogerS]

There will be no files or data on your backup drive that will cause your screensaver not to work so deleting stuff on the backup drive won't fix your problem. Boot up normally and connect everything except the backup drive and see if the screensaver works.

You could also usefully clean you system cache. I recommend getting Onyx as that is a very useful maintenance program.

The other thing to try is create another user and log into that user (with everything connected) and see if the fault persists. I find this is a useful dodge as it tells you whether it is something software related and specific to your user account.

What version of OSX are you on?

 

[mseries]

if it's OK in safe mode then that tells us that whatever is causing the problem isn't started in safe mode. You need to find out what safe mode actually does and hence what doesn't get started in safe mode

 

[RogerS]

if it's OK in safe mode then that tells us that whatever is causing the problem isn't started in safe mode. You need to find out what safe mode actually does and hence what doesn't get started in safe mode

I think that might be a red herring. The OP has gone down the route of trying everything at the same time. Never a good idea for logical fault-finding.

 

[Jonzjob]

Is there any particular reason for having a screen saver? Because as has been said it isn't really needed on non CRT screens.

With both our MacBook Pro and 22 1/2" iMac it is set for the screen to go into sleep mode after 15 minutes and the system to sleep after about 20 minutes. That saves wear and tear on the HDD and a tap of any key brings it back up straight away. In fact a lot of the guys on http://www.mac-forums.com/ say that it's not necessary to shut the system down unless it's going to be off a for longer than a day, but just to put it in sleep mode. That's what we have done for years now.

 

[RobCee]

You may find that you have 'Hot Corners' setup by default and these can be used to force/stop your screen saver from coming on.