Screen shutting off and refusing to turn back on

[Derek Broughton]

quinn wrote:

> I use Ubuntu on a laptop, and sometimes Ubuntu shuts off the screen, and
> I cannot get it to turn back on.
> 
> I know that it shuts the screen off if I shut the laptop far enough, so
> I now have to carry it around with the screen in the fully upright
> position if I want to move it.
> 
> Sometimes it also turns the screen off for no reason that I can
> determine.  It is not a result of leaving the laptop unused for too
> long, because sometimes I can leave it for a long time and it is fine,
> and sometimes I leave it for a much shorter time and I come back and the
> screen is off.
> 
> I have tried turning off the "save power by turning off the screen"
> option.  I have tried going to another virtual terminal (which fixed
> this problem for someone else), and I have no other virtual terminals,
> despite the fact that that is supposed to be the default, and there is
> no way to turn on virtual terminals.
> 
> The laptop is a Toshiba 5105 S702.
> 
> How can I make the screen stop turning off?

Look for a post asking about this on Dells ("Re: Quick Dell laptop test -
help required").  Perhaps it applies to you as well, in which case the
quick fix is to _never_ close the lid unless you're running an X session.

My blind fix when I do that is to ctrl-alt-f1, log in (just assume the login
process is working) and do "sudo vbetool post".  You might verify if that
works for you by going to vt1, login and type that command, but don't hit
"enter" yet.  Then close & open the lid and if the screen is turned off,
hit enter and see if it comes back.  If that works, another solution would
be to write an ACPI rule to always issue "vbetool post" on the LID open
event.
-- 
derek