kubutnu 9.04 freezes on startup and shutdown unless i hold down left arrow key
 

hi,
i have in installed kubuntu 9.04 on my laptop and it only boots up and shuts down if i hold down the left arrow key.
It gets past the grub bootloader screen to the system starting message.
Then i get a black screen. If i hold down the left arrow key i can get it to load (no other key works) and it starts to boot by itself when it gets to the splash screen.
It is similar on shut down. it gets to the system halting message and stops.
I have tried to fix broken packages and got a message about a var file not existing (didnt take down full message).
Its only a small annoyance having to do this but an annoyance none the less. Anyone got any idea how to fix this. I have tried a reinstall btw.

anyone got any advice on this.
I reinstalled xp on my lappy and it had not problems. I had issues getting drivers for xp but boot up and shut down had no problems. This only seems to be a linux issue.
Anyone?

This problem started with one of the kernel updates about 6 months ago and still continues today. It has been somewhat fixed with some of the updates. My HP laptop will now boot without holding a key down as long as it has the power supply plugged in.... without it, it will not boot without repeatedly pressing a key (any key) .
This problem has been written up on the Ubuntu site.

I found the fix for me on another thread on LQ

add "hpet=disable" to the boot options