Fedora 8 64 bit X server issues

[John Thompson]

I have Fedora 8 x86_64 installed on a machine with on board Intel-945GM 
video. The xorg-x11-drv-i810 driver has been giving me a lot of 
problems: if I use it, I cannot access a text console using 
[ctrl-alt-Fn]; the monitor goes into standby with no display. The 
console still reponds to typed commands, but nothing is displayed on the 
monitor. On return to the X session, the display becomes unstable, and 
often dies, and won't let me log back in -- the gdm screen disappears 
and the "loading" cursor appears over a black screen, which persists 
indefinitely. I then have to change to a text console, log in (blindly) 
and initiate a reboot. On reboot, the POST text display is often wildly 
off-center unless I power off the machine for several minutes.  

I can use the vesa driver instead of the Intel driver, but then power 
management doesn't work. DPMS is enabled in the BIOS and in xorg.conf, 
but doesn't seem to be recognized by the vsea driver. If I try using 
e.g. GoogleEarth with the vesa driver, the X server just crashes.

What can I do to rectify this? Or should I just shit-can the on board 
video and get a separate video card?


-- 

John (john at os2.dhs.org)