Hi,
i855 chipset laptop - mobility radeon 9700 - FC5.
did the latest update for fedora
uname -r
2.6.17-1.2174_FC5
downloaded the latest ati driver
ati-driver-installer-8.28.8.
did the aticonfig as described in the help, and after reboot I got a full WHITE screen. I can see the hdd works(led), but all I can do is hit ctrl-alt-bckspace few times to restart the server, but I got the white screen back. No chance to switch to terminal, just doesn't work.
No error messages either.
Rebooted 20 times, no change, so I was put the install cd in, restart in rescue mode and modify xorg.conf to use radeon instead fglrx.

any idea ?

Rajmund.

have the same problem with ati 9700 on a ecs laptop running archlinux, if I disable acpi it works. You could boot in init 3 level (no graf.) and the then "startx" from the command promt. That works for me.