disabling screen blanking in a virtual console

[Tom Metro]

My laptop has been crashing with a kernel panic (locked up with a
flashing caps lock light) with some regularity, and I'd like to track
down the root cause. It tends to happen when the machine is idle and X
has the screen blanked. So in an effort to be able to see what the
kernel is logging, I've been trying to leave the machine viewing a
virtual console.

The problem is that screen blanking keeps turning off the display. I
looked up how to disable it, and I tried:
 setterm -powersave off -blank 0

This had some effect. Now instead of the screen going completely blank,
most text on the screen goes blanks, but any bold text, such as the
command prompt, is left visible.

I tried:
 setterm -powersave off -powerdown 0 -blank 0 -bold off -half-bright off

to try and address this, but it didn't help.

If the screen was entirely blanking, I'd assume it was power saving
routines in the BIOS or something, but this partial blanking suggests
that the OS (Ubuntu) is responsible.

Is there some trick to completely disabling screen blanking in a virtual
console?

 -Tom

-- 
Tom Metro
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
"Enterprise solutions through open source."
Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/