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Screen saver won't launch
I don't know if anyone else has been having this problem. I got my new Dell 8300 with WinXP pro in February. Since then its worked well except that the screen saver will not launch automatically. It came like this out of the box. Its trivial but has been driving me crazy as it should work. It doesn't matter which screen saver is chosen. I can launch them manually but they will not trigger automagically. Anyway came up with many goofy theories but finally using MSconfig went through in diagnostic mode a process of elimination looking for any program that might cause a conflict and prevent the screen saver from running. I FOUND IT. It is PCMService.exe. This is a background program for Dell Media experience that is launched at logon. It is in the registry key:
HKEY_Local_Machine\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
Dell media experience needs this program to be running or it will not start. PCMService.exe must prevent the screen saver from lauching. This makes sense as you would not want your fish to start swimming in the middle of your favorite movie.
I can remove this value from my registry and fix the problem however then if I want to use media experience I have to remember to launch PCMService.exe manually before I launch media experience. I also have to re-boot if I want my screen saver to work. Has anyone run into this? Is my system unique? Has Dell got a fix? Thanks for your help in advance.
maggie16
Bindaas me
17 Posts
794
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Posted April 12th, 2004 19:00
Try repair reinstall of operating system in stead of manually setting of files.
http://support.dell.com/us/en/kb/document.asp?dn=1056993
If repair reinstall does solve the problem, let me know.
Thanks
JRosenfeld
2 Intern
•
4383 Posts
794
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Posted April 12th, 2004 20:00
I don't have Dell Media experience, so this is a shot in the dark, suggested by the name. Does PCMService appear in services? If it does yoiu could try setting it to manual start rather than automatic. That would load it, but not start it until it was called upon.jgregorypalmer
13 Posts
794
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Posted April 12th, 2004 23:00
PCMService may be causing more serious problems as well. After several calls to support over this issue (computer freezing and overheating), I found that PCMService.exe is running the processor at 100% when the system is idle. Don't know how this is occuring, but the screen turns back on after being idle, Task Manager shows PCMService using 100% of the processor resources.
maggie16
7 Posts
794
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Posted April 12th, 2004 19:00
I have run repair in the past with no effect. I don't think that this is an operating system problem. It is a Dell Media Experience issue. I am not even sure that it is a problem but they should have a way of removing the launch of PCMService.exe without requiring me to edit the registry directly.
maggie16