I've been running Gentoo with the same version of XFree86 (4.3), the same version of the ATI drivers (I have a 9500 Pro), and the same version of everything else relevant I can think of for about a month, and everything's worked fine. However, a few days ago, after a restart, it began freezing every time I started X.

The monitor goes black, and then enters sleep mode. Then the computer completely locks up. I can't get to a virtual terminal, and I can't even ping my IP from a remote host. It's just completely frozen. I can't do anything to it.

I hadn't installed/updated any software at all prior to the restart, or edited any configuration files, or anything else I can think of. I didn't change anything - it just stopped working.

The card works fine from Windows, so it isn't busted.

Is there any reason for it to do this? Is there anything I can do to fix it?

(p.s. - I've so far tried remerging the drivers, kernel, and even XFree86. I've tried different configurations - including standard VGA - and they all do the same thing.)

Well, I fixed it. I have a logitech USB mouse, and apparently it now freezes my computer unless I use a USB->PS/2 convertor. It never did that before, but using the convertor makes everything work right. How very, very strange.