Alright, this seems to be the most common problem with dell monitors. If you do a search you would see there are 10+ pages with this topic dating back to 2001. I personally think Dell should cut out the "power save mode" period, becuase pressing the power button on the CPU does not always work and people usually have to play around with it until it comes out.

When this first start happening to me, it use to say "Monitor is in power save mode. Use PC to activate". But that doesnt always work at frist. So what i use to do was click the mouse keys and keyboard keys continously and it worked. It happened to me again today, and what i did was press the keys again but that was not working. So i unplugged the power supply from the monitor, and unplugged the monitor cable from the back of the CPU. Then I FIRMLY reinserted them, taking my time, making sure they're in good and walla; it was back to normal.

So i tested it now. Turned off the CPU, left on the monitor (this causes it to go in to power save mode automatically), On the screen it said monitor is in power save mode Activate using PC.  There when i pressed the Power button on the CPU now, it came out automatically and booted up normally.

My conlcusion is that Dell has a fault with their monitors and its power save mode; because i see way too much complaints on this forum about it. It doesnt always work the way it is suppose to and can be very stressing.

thanks for replying!  i did notice all of the threads about this topic.  the thing that gets me is that he has tried different monitors (2 of his sons), and the same sort of thing happens.  I didn't have much time to devote to helping him tonight, but tomorrow I am going to go over, and mess around with it a bit more.  I am going to try unplugging and securing the connections, and also, possibley check out the video card connection.