Time to reinstall Windows? Or get a new desktop?

[cranioscopical]

SP3 has some issues with screensavers.  For many they just won't kick in and the screens won't power off.

I found this was happening on one of my machines and went looking, only to find that I'm not alone.
(It's only a minor annoyance, plenty of ways around it.)

[Carol Haynes]

Strange - I wonder why. No such probs with screensavers and powersaving mode here with SP3.

[Darwin]

SP3 has some issues with screensavers.  For many they just won't kick in and the screens won't power off.

I found this was happening on one of my machines and went looking, only to find that I'm not alone.
(It's only a minor annoyance, plenty of ways around it.)

-cranioscopical (September 11, 2008, 01:59 PM)

That's interesting. i wonder if it is related to a problem that I've seen on both my personal notebook and my wife's notebook: both are set to go into standby when lid is shut but every so often they won't - you come back, raise the lid and log back in (both are set to require log-in from screensaver) and THEN they'll go into standby...

[cranioscopical]

From what I read, systems with nVidia graphics suffer most (but it's not exclusive to those). The one system of mine that suffers from this does have nVidia graphics (same issue with different versions of the drivers).

I don't much care about this and won't be surprised if some other, subsequent, update slides in an unheralded (or serendipitous) fix.

Despite all our gnashing of teeth and rending of garments, I'm continually amazed that modern O/Ss can sustain so many and such varied systems.

[Darwin]

Heh, heh - both notebooks have integrated (Intel) graphics...

[Carol Haynes]

Two of my systems have AMD/nVidia nForce motherboards and nVidia graphics cards and neither have any problems with SP3. I have an Intel based notebook and an AMD ATI Xpress/ATI video card based desktop and neither of those have any issues either. None of my XP SP3 based VM machines have issues either.

I am grateful that I haven't had issues - maybe it is particular versions of nVidia's drivers causing the problems - have you looked to see if they have been updated?

[OldElmerFudd]

 
You're set for some fun! I just finished building another box, very smooth and easy by now. Second the recommendation about Newegg and Crucial memory. Another thought: If you spend top dollar on the latest hardware, it'll be outdated in six months. The bleeding edge ain't all it's cracked up to be. Above 3Ghz on a CPU and 2.5Gb memory, and I can't tell much difference. Look for solid reports about last year's gear; user forums and newsgroups are a great way to go. Use your favorites; I love Seasonic power supplies. My machines run so quiet I have to look at them to see if they're on!

[f0dder]

You don't even need 3GHz when you go core2, that's the beauty of their high IPC/CPI (I do have my 2.4GHz Q6600 overclocked to 3.0GHz, though).

As for silent power supply, that's pretty moot if you install a GPU with any kind of horsepower. Most of them are as noisy as supersonic jets :/

[cranioscopical]

I am grateful that I haven't had issues - maybe it is particular versions of nVidia's drivers causing the problems - have you looked to see if they have been updated?

-Carol Haynes (September 11, 2008, 07:29 PM)

Yes, thanks for the thought, but I've done all that stuff.

It doesn't concern me, I was just tossing my pebble into the 'post-SP3-turbulence' stream.

[cranioscopical]

Another thought: If you spend top dollar on the latest hardware, it'll be outdated in six months. The bleeding edge ain't all it's cracked up to be.

-OldElmerFudd (September 13, 2008, 01:40 AM)

I'll endorse that one!  My own days on the bleeding edge are over, too much trouble, insufficient reward -- perhaps, simply, ennui.  My recent system came from behind the curve and I'm more than satisfied.