For the past two days I've installed slackware 12.2, downloaded all the necessary drivers and countless hours of other work. But after I installed the drivers for my ATI Tech Inc RV610 LEAGP [Radeon HD 2400 Pro AGP] video card, my KDE Window system will not open, my screen turns black and nothing else happens after I startx from my command screen.

What's the cause of this? Can anyone help me out?

Can you boot to the command line?
Hint: at the Lilo-prompt type "linux init 3"

Then you can edit your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.

it was booting to the command line a few minutes ago, but now it's not. All I can do now is wait a few minutes or restart the bios, even then it's not a guarantee.

But after the boot process, does it get automatically into X? Or does it still boot to the command line?

it still boots to the command line

I think something is wrong with the bios now because it won't boot from the installation cd either. If I take the battery out to reset the bios and it works, will buying a new battery help?

ok, then you can edit your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file and change the driver of your graphics card to one of the standard drivers so that at least you are working again.

For your card you can try the radeonhd driver or even the vesa driver.

If the battery is one of those simple-to-get button-type batteries, it won't hurt to spend a few bucks and try...

Unfortunately I need to wait an hour to start the computer again in order to see any thing on the monitor. I'll let you know once it starts running. In the mean time I'll buy the new button type battery. Thanks for helping.

Ok, I left the battery out for nearly an hour and it finally booted to the command line. How can edit my xorg.conf file? I went ahead and 'chmod +x' it so I can have the permission to it, let me know if I was wrong to do that.

I don't understand why you would need to wait an hour just to see your monitor again if the issue is BIOS settings related or a misconfiguration in Slackware. Is your unit overheating? Does your power supply provide enough juice? You could have several intermittant problems otherwise.

I found that I have:
xorg.conf
xorg.conf-fbdev
xorg.conf-vesa
xorg.conf.origianl-0

in my X11 directory with -rw-r--r-- permissions.

Do I simply run one of those files to make it work again?

It could be BIOS settings, but I need to get back to X in order to update my BIOS first. I am a newbie with slackware but I installed it fine on my laptop twice, never had any issues before. The only thing I did differently is follow the howtoforge.com/the-perfect_desktop_slackware12 website pages 3-6, for proper updates, etc... and it is a little out-of-date.

Is my unit overheating? I have a 3Gz processor but I have three fans fully functional in my desktop, including my video card. They sound good, but perhaps my 300W power supply isn't good enough.

I'm really hoping it's not my motherboard that would be a bad intermittent problem, but my command line is back anyhow, I just need to fix X. The last thing I did was install my video card driver, and the log file was stored in /usr/share/ati. I turned my computer off to move it in another room, and wamo, no more windows system

trnz$mr:

setting chmod +x does not give you permissions to the file. That command makes the file executeable which you do not want, although i guess there is no harm in having it that way. I would recommend setting chmod -x on the file.

Also did you run 'aticonfig --initial'?

I just ran it and this is what happend:
not too sure what's going on here, I just need to know for sure when it's ok to start X again.

Is there anything else I can do? I'm kind of pushing it with the gods here.