Xorg display locks after idle time

[Alex Regan]

Hi,

>> I have a fedora21 box and periodically the display stops responding. The
>> display on the monitor is blank, and trying to wake it again with the
>> mouse or keyboard is not successful.
>>
>> I can VNC into the system, and while the screensaver is on with the
>> clock in the center, the clock does continue to update.
>>
>> It's like my keystrokes aren't being acknowledged, I'd say.
>>
>> I can access the system remotely via ssh. I've tried killing Xorg, but
>> nothing changes. It just comes back in this screensaver mode and the
>> monitor is still unresponsive.
>>
>> I'm using the default driver that's chosen at install time for an ATI
>> Radeon chipset.
>>
>> I've looked through the Xorg.9.log file and there is nothing indicating
>> any type of helpful error message.
>>
>> How can I troubleshoot this further? Perhaps it's a known problem?
>
> Uhm, are you certain it's just the screensaver or could it be the
> machine is going into suspend or sleep state? In some cases, sleep or
> suspend also powers down the USB ports. If you're using USB keyboards
> or mice, that could prevent the items being seen. This can be disabled.
> The shotgun approach is, as root:
>
>      for i in /sys/bus/usb/devices/*/power/autosuspend; do echo 2 > $i;
> done
>
> This would turn off autosuspend for all USB devices.

Could it be in suspend mode while still being able to access it remotely 
via ssh?

Good tip for the autosuspend, though. Is there no way to do this via the 
desktop apps?

I've turned the PC over to my father-in-law now, so I'll either need to 
explain to him how to do it, or try and do it remotely.

Thanks,
Alex