Modem locks up at night

[dansole]

Hi,
I have an annoying problem with my internet connection which I just cant seem to figure out.
Everything works fine except when I leave it on at night, sometimes in the morning it has shut down and wont restart.
when I pickup the phone I can still hear modem noise but network monitor doesnt register the connection.
first it says network connection already up initiating redial
then exit error 6
or exit error 31
I cant seem to find any reason for it and dont really know where else to look (newbie!)
the only solution is rebooting! :(
please let me know if you need more info to help me diagnose this problem.
thanks in advance

PS
dial-up 56K HSF modem using linuxant driver
FC4, gnome and KDE installed but using gnome
using /usr/bin/internet-druid to connect
yum nightly update enabled (doesnt seem to be problem)
my connection cuts out after 4 hours so I have restart if connection dies enabled
firestarter firewall

[dansole]

I've been rooting around for more information that might help someone to diagnose this problem and found these in /etc/hsfmodem:

.modconflicts-2.6.13-1.1532_FC4,
.modconflicts-2.6.13-1.1526_FC4,
.modconflicts-2.6.12-1.1447_FC4,
.modconflicts-2.6.12-1.1398_FC4

all of which contain the following text:

"snd-via82xx-modem hsfmc97via
snd-intel8x0m hsfmc97ich hsfmc97sis
snd-atiixp-modem hsfmc97ati"

does this indicate the kernel is configured for different modem?
could it be part of the problem?
if not can anyone suggest where else to look for more useful information?

thanks again

[LinuxHippy]

Maybe your ISP kicks you off their network if your pc is idle? Try running korn or gkrellm remote mailbox to check your email every 3 minutes.

[dansole]

You're right on the money LinuxHippy,
my isp disconnects me after 4 hours whether I'm idle or not!
It's a really cheap deal though, even with the cost of phone calls, I just set the connection settings to "redial if disconnected" and I'm away again, even yum and bittorrent dont seem to have a problem with the break in connection, however every so often the connection fails and I cannot reconnect.
If I pickup the phone handset there is a single tone like the modem is stuck trying to connect.
cant help but think it's something to do with those .modconflicts.
maybe if I can get the modem to pause for a minute before trying to reconnect, I wont have the problem, does anyone know how to do this?
thanks for your advice LinuxHippy! :)

[capnlinux]

Do you have call waiting and could you be getting a call at night that would cause the modem to hang?

[dansole]

Yes captain I do have call waiting, but I doubt anyone's calling me so late at night.
also I checked in the system log this morning and the whole computer seemed to have frozen while modem was trying to redial!
You can see as soon as 4 hours connection time is finished I get booted by isp, wvdial tries to initialise modem then nothing.
I am greeted by a blank screen in the morning and have to reboot!

Nov 1 00:00:02 localhost pppd[23060]: LCP terminated by peer
Nov 1 00:00:03 localhost NET[25819]: /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifdown-post : updated /etc/resolv.conf
Nov 1 00:00:03 localhost su(pam_unix)[25831]: session opened for user root by (uid=0)
Nov 1 00:00:03 localhost su(pam_unix)[25831]: session closed for user root
Nov 1 00:00:05 localhost pppd[23060]: Connection terminated.
Nov 1 00:00:05 localhost pppd[23060]: Connect time 240.1 minutes.
Nov 1 00:00:05 localhost pppd[23060]: Sent 43897754 bytes, received 41950354 bytes.
Nov 1 00:00:06 localhost pppd[23060]: Connect time 240.1 minutes.
Nov 1 00:00:06 localhost pppd[23060]: Sent 43897754 bytes, received 41950354 bytes.
Nov 1 00:00:06 localhost pppd[23060]: Exit.
Nov 1 00:00:08 localhost ifup-ppp: pppd started for westnet on /dev/modem at 57600
Nov 1 00:00:09 localhost pppd[25852]: pppd 2.4.2 started by root, uid 0
Nov 1 00:00:10 localhost wvdial[25854]: WvDial: Internet dialer version 1.54.0
Nov 1 00:00:10 localhost wvdial[25854]: Initializing modem.
Nov 1 05:35:49 localhost syslogd 1.4.1: restart.

reminds me of the bad ol' days of windoze :eek: