Tricky post-install graphics problem

[T. Seth Georgion]

I'm having a really bizarre problem with my install.

The install goes fine, complete install with Intel extreme graphics card in 
a Gateway M275xl laptop, completely boots up into Fedora Core 2 and 
everything is wonderful, I can change the display settings to just about 
anything and my monitor is set up as a generic LCD.

Things get strange on subsequent reboots. On reboot there are two main 
screens one with a picture of a computer and a loading status bar, the other 
a text like interface listing manual startup issues with a green passed or 
red failed. Basically the computer randomly picks which of those two it's 
going to show on any particular boot and then also tries to decide how long 
(sometimes it randomly skips back and forth between the two on the same 
boot) Then when it does boot up and tries to start x (right after showing 
the logon prompt) 9 out of ten times I go to a straight blank screen that is 
unescapable via ctrl-alt-bkspace. The other time it boots to a screen that's 
half solid yellow and half solid black.

When that happens about half of the time I can hit ctrl-alt-bkspace and it 
will exit to a logon prompt where it will automatically start x and all is 
perfect. The other half of the time, every time I hit ctrl-alt-backspace it 
seems to wait two minutes, clear the screen and go back to the yellow and 
black again 30 seconds later.

What's up with this? And does anyone know how to keep X from starting 
automatically without using the GUI?

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