centos 7: control idle (screen blanking) time?

You can control the delay time with a setting under "Power" option within Settings area.

GUI way:

1. In the upper right corner "USERNAME" menu select "Settings"
2. Go to "Power"
3. "Power Saving->Blank Screen" = can be set from 1 - 15 minutes

Command line way (to view and set it to 5 minutes):

gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.session idle-delay
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.session idle-delay 300

OS: CentOS Linux 7 Gnome: Version 3.14.2 Virtualization: KVM

I was having the same issues. This is the path I took to resolve the timer issue.

Settings / Privacy / Screen Lock (Click on the Screen Lock tab... the whole thing is the tab :-) ) Select the new timer or turn it off. Problem solved!

KoalaJoe