Monitors Won't Sleep in TwinView Mode (Ubuntu Jaunty / gnome-power-manager)

[basskozz-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org (BassKozz)]

On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 11:11 AM, BassKozz <basskozz-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:

> The plot thickens...
>
> After some googling I found this page:
> http://www.shallowsky.com/linux/x-screen-blanking.html
> According to this page "vbetool" seems to be the solution.
>
> Quick description of vbetool: "vbetool uses lrmi in order to run code from
> the video BIOS. Currently, it is able to alter DPMS states, save/restore
> video card state, and attempt to initialize the video card from scratch. It
> exists primarily in order to increase the chances of successfully recovering
> video state after an ACPI S3 suspend."
> - http://freshmeat.net/projects/vbetool/
>
> So I tried what it said and used: vbetool dpms off
> And it Worked :-D !!!
> Wait a minute not so fast...
> I can't break out of it :-(
> The monitors are stuck in standby mode... I tried moving the mouse,
> slamming my keyboard against my head, ctrl+alt+del... nothing seems to break
> it out of standby mode.  It seems that the GPU's BIOS is stuck in Standby
> Mode... I had to manually press the reset button on the box to get it to
> restart.
>
> Hmm, off to do some more research.
> Any idea's out there?
>

I think I might know why I can't get out of standby mode, or at least I have
a guess.
When I try to run vbetool as user I get the following error messages:
open /dev/mem: Permission denied
Failed to initialise LRMI (Linux Real-Mode Interface).

So in order to initiate vbetool I need to use sudo.  So my assumption is
that because I am running vbetool as sudo/root I can't get out of it by
moving the mouse or keyboard because these are actions that are being
performed as the user.
Maybe I am way off here, but it's just a guess.  Any idea's on how to run
vbetool as user to test?

Sorry for all the posts.