Strange Monitor related power outages

For some reason, whenever my monitor is either turned off or goes to the screen saver, my My Book Essential also shuts down. At first I thought maybe the fact that they were on the same power strip was causing some sort of power fluctuation that was turning it off, but when I move the monitor to it’s own outlet the My Book Essential doesn’t even power up to begin with.

It’s very strange and beyond my technical depth. I’ve no idea why it and the monitor would be so related that just moving the monitor’s power source off of the same strip would cause it to cease functioning (clearly that’s not what must be really happening, but it’s how it seems).

You can see how this makes my external hard drive a giant paperweight to me. If I ever want to compile something or download a large file and walk away from the computer, it turns the monitor off and my drive goes with it.

Can anyone shed any sort of light to this? I’ve got literally nothing. (PS: For some reason my monitor will only function in the solitary top side slot of the surge protector strip or in the outlet itself, it won’t accept any other source on the rest of the strip)

If I were to take a stab in the dark, I’d say the outlet you moved the wall wart to is not live.

If I were to take a further stab in the dark, I’d guess they both go to sleep at the same time because that’s what the Windoze power settings are telling them to do.

Ok, continuing experimenting: If I plug in my monitor to the power strip and put the external hard drive in the outlet itself they stop the strange behavior. (which is fantastic)

But I’d still love for someone to shed some light on to what was going on and why the reverse didn’t seem to work just so I know what was happening (and to avoid issues in the future).