[PLUG] Unexplained system restarts - maybe the screensaver ?

[George Langford <george@georgesbasement.com>]

Recently (since the last apt-get udate & apt-get upgrade) my debian/sarge
PC has been crashing (rebooting) from screensaver mode.  This happens if
I leave the monitor on and stop all activity on the 'puter.  First, the
screensaver starts up, but after a while it times out and the animations
stop.  The crashes seem to happen some time after that.  This is a new
occurrence, and has taken place several times in the last two or three days.

Are there logs of the last few seconds before such a crash ?
Can I finesse the problem by extending the timeout period dramatically ?
Can I simply kill the screensaver and get used to shutting off the monitor
whenever I walk away from the 'puter ?

I have been generally shutting off the monitor when I'm not using the PC,
and it has never crashed (except during long power outages, past the
ability of the UPS to supply power) even when the PC runs for weeks at a
time.

Now, if I get careless and leave the monitor on, the crashes are starting
to take place after no more than 15 to 30 minutes of inactivity.  Before
this, the screensaver would simply freeze.  I could re-awaken it by moving
the mouse ... more recently, moving the mouse wouldn't do the trick - I
had to touch the keyboard.  Now, when I see a blank screen and touch the
keyboard, the 'puter restarts.

The PC is on the green NIC of a Smoothwall hardware firewall.  There was
no other PC running when the most recent crash occurred.

The debian PC never crashes in normal use unless I get too antsy with
mouse clicks and opening/closing programs, such as the browser or its
many open windows.  I'm not worried about those.  It's the penalty for
failing to turn off the monitor I'm worried about.

The monitor is shared between the Smoothwall and the PC by use of a
KVM switch.  There have been a few times when I had to activate the
switch manually (switching to the Smoothwall PC and back again) in
order to unfreeze the debian PC's version of the screen.

I have 500MB of RAM and plenty of hard disk space (>15GB).

Thanks,
George

George Langford
george@georgesbasement.com

PS. My printer is now working fine.  No glitches at all.
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