Recently I've notice that while either writing an email(Thunderbird) or on the Internet(Firefox), the screens dims down and loses the color and sits there for about 30 seconds and then switches back to my desktop and I lose my email, if writing something, or closes the webpage I was previously on. I am still with Ubuntu 7.10. A window then appears telling me that it is Not Responding. Why is this happening now and what could be the causes of dropping the connection? Anyone?

Not sure I know how to use resource tools in linux. In Windows you'd use event viewer or performance monitor.

Pretty sure the simple answer would be to update the OS to 8.04. Since you say recently I assume it did work correctly. Maybe some app you installed or some update did this.

"Best Practices", Event viewer, host file, perfmon, are in my top 10

Thanks for your response jefro. Actually, I am staying away from upgrading to 8.04. It appears too buggy from what I read on the blogs and Ubuntu forums. I am quite satisfied with Ubuntu 7.10. I do get occasional problems with 7.10 and I am trying to figure out how to troubleshoot or debug the problem. In Windows when I would get a Memory Dump or BSOD, I would run the Windows Debugger Program and get information as to what was causing the problem. In Ubuntu, I have no clue how to go about and troubleshoot this problem that I am presently experiencing. Still learning how to use it as it is. I haven't installed any programs lately and any updates come automatically.

Then we are back to what happened to change it. You suggest it did work at one time.

Then we can assume an update either didn't work or install correctly.

Might have to do a clean install of 7 again to fix this. If only thunderbird causes an issue re-install of that might help.

"Best Practices", Event viewer, host file, perfmon, are in my top 10

Nah, that's too drastic of a possible fix with no guaranties that it will work. As I said earlier, it took me this long to get to this point where, for the most part, my OS is functioning good, with a few exceptions. I'm just trying to figure out how to go about and find some of these problems if in fact Ubuntu documents them somewhere in the system. It's bad enough I don't want to clean install version 8.04, I certainly won't do it with 7.10 again. I'll continue searching. I appreciate your response though, jefro. Thanks.