I've been trying in vain to fix the following issue which is very frustrating especially since I am a linux newbie.

I have an Acer Aspire 3003LCI that I have installed Vortexbox on to act as a media server. The computer is connecting to a Actiontec Verizon FIOS router via ethernet with a static IP address. I normally use the computer in command line mode but I have gnome xwindows installed which I dabble with from time to time. I noticed the following 2 problems. 1. the time would go out of sync and 2. the screen will randomly go blank and the computer will lose connection with the network.

I think my CMOS battery is dying or dead but despite taking the computer apart from the front or the back i could not find the battery. My solution has been to run a script in the cron.hourly folder that does ntpd every hour and that keeps time in sync. (I mention this problem in case there is some issue between this one and the other one).

My bigger problem is that the computer randomly will drop it's connection with the network and all my squeezeboxes and my subsonic connection will disconnect. The screen would go blank when this occurred. A keypress or mouse move would wake up computer. I wasn't sure if it is a power management issue or an ethernet connectivity issue. I have tried the following:

1. Looking in bios for power management settings (there are none).

2. Using setterm to turn powersave off and blank 0. This would keep the monitor on but the computer would still lose it's connection

3. Setting the DHCP lease to 60 hours (instead of the 12 hours it was set to). Of note the problem will still occur and seems to be worse (it would occur within 6-12 hours). Of note when the computer is asleep the ethernet lights are still on. When I ping the computer from the router it gets no response.

4. I ran ACPItools (see print below) and I noted that the computer is in c1 a lot. Not sure if this is an issue. (not versed in power mgmt and sleep states at all)

I notice the following observations:

1. I use FreeNX with no machine to remote desktop into the computer. When I remote in from another computer on the network to a gnome sessions it seems to last longer before disconnecting (stays connected for 24 hours)

I'm pretty expasperated. I'm not sure if I should get a PCMIA ethernet jack? or reinstall the vortexbox? HELP!

Here's the ACPI tools printout:

vortexbox.localdomain ~]# acpitool -e
Kernel version : 2.6.30.10-105.220090320 - ACPI version : 20090320
-----------------------------------------------------------
Battery #1 : present
Remaining capacity : unknown, 0.00%
Design capacity : 2000 mAh
Last full capacity : 65524 mAh
Present rate : 0 mA
Charging state : charged
Battery type : rechargeable
Model number : 12ZL
Serial number : 11821

AC adapter : on-line
Fan : <not available>

CPU type : Mobile AMD Sempron(tm) Processor 3000+
CPU speed : 1800.014 MHz
Cache size : 128 KB
Bogomips : 3600.02
Processor ID : 0
Bus mastering control : yes
Power management : yes
Throttling control : no
Limit interface : no
Active C-state : C0
C-states (incl. C0) : 3
Usage of state C1 : 15534787 (88.6 %)
Usage of state C2 : 575 (0.0 %)

Thermal zone 1 : ok, 53 C
Trip points :
-------------
critical (S5): 97 C
passive: 93 C: tc1=2 tc2=3 tsp=40 devices=CPU0


Device S-state Status Sysfs node
---------------------------------------
1. PCI0 S5 disabled no-busci0000:00
2. LAN S5 disabled pci:0000:00:04.0
3. MODM S3 disabled pci:0000:00:02.6
4. USB0 S3 disabled pci:0000:00:03.0
5. USB1 S3 disabled pci:0000:00:03.1
6. USB2 S3 disabled pci:0000:00:03.2
7. USB3 S3 disabled