When your screensaver goes on, is that the same thing as your computer being idle?

Question

I am using this for gomez peer zone program. A program that only works while your computer is in the idle state. So I want to know what exactly is the idle state.

Answer 1

James V answered your question in detail. Question is: Why do you ask this question? Are you trying to put your system in an "idle" state, trying to prevent it from going "idle", or what?

With more detail we should be able to give more assistance.

Or did you just want to know for the sake of knowing?

Answer 2

No.

A screen saver is when the computer shows you a "nice" background image or animation. Kinda like an indication that your away from your keyboard for a while, the computer still has everthing on the background running.

When in idle or hibernating, your computer actually is like "sleeping". All the programs and things you had on would like stop working, although theyre still there on the desktop, just not running at its 100%. Therefore your computer uses less energy.

Answer 3

That's right.  The screen saver comes on after a given number of minutes of non-use.

If you have XP you can right click on your desktop, select properties, select screen saver and adjust the time and the actual screen saver itself.

Answer 4

The only time your computer is ever truly idle is when it's hibernating or turned off.  (Technically, that's not strictly correct - a system can be built in which the software - all of it - sleeps, waiting for a hardware interrupt to be generated by a keystroke.)  If nothing else is running, some loop is normally running waiting for you to do something.  (Even Linux with no graphic interface is looping waiting for a keystroke.)

If you look at the Task Manager's Processes tab, you'll see that System Idle Process (a process that's waiting for you to do something) is using almost all the CPU's time when you're doing nothing.

Answer 5

Your system is "idle" when no programs are running on it, except those that are needed by the OS - Win, Linux, whatever. A program may run in background (like Bitcomet) and the screensaver to be active. So no, the screensaver does not indicate that your machine is in "idle" state.

Answer 6

yes.

Answer 7

No, a screen saver is just that. It is designed to keep your computer's monitor from getting an image burned into it permanently. You computer can still run in the background while this program is running. The screen saver itself is a program that runs on your computer. Therefore, while the screen saver is on, then your computer wont be idle because it needs to run the screen saver program. Another example would be if you had a movie running on your computer, and your screen saver came on, that doesn't turn the movie off, it simply runs over the movie. So, while your screen saver is on, the movie is still running, therefore the computer is not idle.