When I run X it divides the screen into 4 vertical strips, each of which shows only the leftmost portion of the screen, and only about the top half of it.
Changing color depth from 24 to 16 (using "dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86") reduces the number of strips to 2.

Also the mouse (which is only a big square, not a pointer) can go off the right and bottom edges of the screen and down below it a significant distance.
What's going on???

Any help greatly appreciated.

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Important Specs & Stuff:
S3 Savage IX on flat panel LCD screen
Debian Linux
Gateway Solo 5300 - Synaptics TouchPad mouse (configured as PS/2 Compatible)
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It seems like you have a misconfigured X client. Did you run something to configure your X (such as xf86config, xf86cfg, xfree86setup) ?

Perhaps you might need to check your HSync and VSync for your monitor; or perhaps you're running an impractical resolution for your LCD; perhaps you should try another graphics driver. Try the standard VGA/SVGA drivers, they might give you a bit of stability to work from.

Try doing a Ctrl + Alt + Keypad "-" to see what happens; this won't fix anything in all likelyhood.

I installed it with "apt-get install x-window-system" and configured all the options it wanted.

When that didn't work I used "dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86" and changed various things - none of it seemed to make a difference. At the moment the settings are:

Manage with debconf? Yes
Select desired driver? savage
VCard ID: Generic Video Card
Bus ID: [nothing]
Memory in video card: [nothing]
Kernel framebuffer interface? Yes
XKB rule? xfree86
Keyboard Model? PC104
Layout? us
Variant? [nothing]
Options? [nothing]
Mouse port? /dev/psaux
Mouse? PS/2
Emulate 3button Mouse? Yes
Scroll events? no
Monitor ID? Generic Monitor
LCD Device? Yes
Configure type? Medium
Best video mode? 1024x768 @ 60 Hz
Color depth? 24
XFree86 Modules? All but the last one "xtt" (the default)
Write...? Yes, yes

Thanks...
-Dan