random blackouts when idle

for the past month my comp has been like blacking out while im away. i leave it on 24/7 for folding so i often find the screen black when i come home from school or wake up in the morning, and i have to restart it. when i press reset it hangs trying to detect ide devices when posting (but not complete freeze, because it will react to me pressing del to get into bios) and i have to turn off the comp for a few seconds and then turn it back on then all is well. any ideas why this is happening? its never happened while im using the computer, only when im away for a long time

What do you have your power management settings set to both in the BIOS and windows? Sounds like after so long, its turning the monitor and or hard disks off. Generally this shouldn't cause a problem, but I have seen on occassion, power management really screwing things up with getting it to come out of standby.

in windows i only have the monitor turn off after 5 min (not even a screensaver) and thats all. in bios, im not sure let me check

EDIT: nope all my power management stuff in bios is turned off too. hmm...

Are your temps and voltages in acceptable ranges?

definately. cpu is 35c, northbridge is 38c, vcore is 1.57v

EDIT: wow.. i had my monitor off doing homework just now, then i hear this very audible snap sound (like a piece of plastic breaking) and my harddrive light is consatntly lit. i turn on the monitor, but there isn't a black screen and i can still move the mouse but once i mouse over soemthing everything freezes all except the mouse. i restart and it has trouble detecting ide devices again.

hmmm....anyone smell a bad hard drive?

that or perhaps the connector is loose. . that 'snap' sounds like the drive losing the 12v side. . as in the spindle stops. when the thing spins back up you are getting garbage to the system as the "POST" of the drive comes alive. Try changing to another power plug. I have seen this happen before as some of the mulex plugs are just plain crappy. IF that doesnt help. . I agree I smell a failing hard drive.

Good Luck

grrrrrr it better not be the hard drive failing... i just got this thing like 4 months ago!