Hello
I am using Debian Etch on my PC and from some time I experienced strange freezes on my PC when it is left idle for more than 30 min or something. The PC is absolutely unresponsible, even CDs cannot be unmounted so that I open my DVDRW device for example. From what I see from the frozen desktop, It looks like the system has tried to shutdown (half or more of the opened apps and documents are gone), but when I have a look in /var/log/messages there is nothing for the period, just the --MARK-- entries (to the moment the system has frozen, after that there are no messages). The only thing I can do afterwards is restart from the power button of the PC, and the next time I boot there are absolutely no errors, even fsck doesn't find something wrong with the HDD.
I don't have the slightest idea what may the cause be, so can you please help me? Are there other logs that may contain something about this, or a way to monitor what's happening in the system in that time...?
PS I'm using the 2.6.22 kernel, sorry if there is a similar thread, but I didn't find possible answer to my problem...

There are two systems in Debian that may be where your problem is located. The gnome power manager package is designed to come on after a set period of idle time and save power by shutting down some of the hardware. The gnome screensaver is designed to come on after a set period of idle time and display a moving image on the screen and/or require a password before you can access the computer again.

We occasionally get a question with your symptoms where the problem turns out to be a misconfigured screensaver or power manager. Check your screensaver and power manager settings in gnome to see if one of them is the problem.

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Steve Stites

Well, these were the fisrt things to come to mi mind, so i experimentally stopped any powersaving options and the screensaver (via the gnome tools from the gnome menu) but after some time, the problem came back... is it possible that it is hardware one? Maybe from the power supply...?