[Power Management - Screen Saver] I use the BIOS screen off feature (in desktop properties - right-click on open area of the desktop). It saves CPU cycles over Windows screen savers. I am using an ABIT KG-7 Lite motherboard, and it has a section in the BIOS called Power Management. If you go in there, you have three options for automatic screen closing - blank screen, V&H Sync and Blank, and Power Management. I use power management because my monitor supports it.

Anyway, the whole point of this is, don't you hate it when the screen saver kicks in during a download you are monitorig, or while you're watching some graphics? There's a section in Power Management where you can enable, for example, activity on VGA ports to restart the screen saver countdown. There is a whole list of other things, ordered by interrupt (IRQ) number, that you can enable to do the same thing for that interrupt.

Say, for example, you like to watch visualizations while you're listening to MP3s. Just find out the interrupt, in Device Manager (winkey-pause), and enable wake-up for that interrupt in the list in the BIOS Power Management section. As long as you're using the audio card, the screen saver will not kick in.

So, that's about it. I hope you can find this feature in your BIOS. There are certainly many more current and better motherboards on the market than my KG-7 Lite. Seems to me they would all have to have this kind of feature.