Linuxmint 18.3 & Cinnamon 3.6.6 hung/frozen after power turn off screen

[Eucalyptus]

Hi,

Using LinuxMint 18.3 x64, kernel 4.13.0-32, Cinnamon 3.6.6
Video = Nvidia GT216GLM [Quadro FX 880M] (HP Elitebook 8540w)
Power option: turn off screen (on AC): after 10mn, Suspend when inactive for 30mn

The problem: when the screen is turned off after 10 minutes. The screen wakes up OK, mouse cursor moves OK. But the GUI is not responsive to any mouse click. The only solution so far, is to Ctrl-Alt-Backspace. Relogin and restart with an empty desktop.

This problem seems to appear since Dec 2017. I was already on 18.3 and the laptop was working OK. I was on kernel 4.4.x. I was hoping that updating the kernel to 4.13 would fix but the problem still remains. This seems hardware related, The desktop computer (same LinuxMint & kernel version) doesn't have this problem.

Hope there is a more elegant solution than Ctrl-Alt-Backspace. Thanks in advance for any help.

EDIT: The login screen is NOT sensitive to the hangup issue. Turned on the computer, didn't login. Went for dinner. Came back and could login OK.
EDIT2: An acceptable solution is to enable "lock screen" when screen is off. Somehow the screen asking for the password is not affected by the hanging.

[rickNS]

Curious if the problem presents after only the 10 minutes OR after suspend has happened ?

[AZgl1500]

Same thing here.

I had to set the Power Manager to NEVER on every single time out feature.
Disable Hibernation
Disable Suspend....

Now when I close the lid, the screen turns off, but does not go to sleep.

When I am done, I always choose "Shutdown" for the night.

After using it this way for a while, I much prefer it.... it is always ready to go during the day.
The slight 2 minute boot up time is not a bother to me..... if you need speed, get a SSD.
________________________________________________________
Kernel: 4.13.0-26-generic x86_64 (64 bit)
Desktop: Cinnamon 3.6.7 Distro: Linux Mint 18.3 Sylvia

[Eucalyptus]

Curious if the problem presents after only the 10 minutes OR after suspend has happened ?

I think the 10 minutes screen off. When the screen is turned black. I have noticed several times I could not be away more than 30 minutes. Also, maybe there is a confounding factor. Since Dec 2017 I use the laptop with an external screen. Not sure if this has any relationship to the Cinnamon hang up.