XFree still unstable on ATI Rage LT Pro

[Olaf Stetzer <olaf.stetzer@gmx.net>]

Hello list,

I believe this is a known problem but I wonder if
there is a workaraound for this:

Sometimes when the screen goes to "sleep" due to
powersaving or if I switch to console (less often)
the display/keyboard is sometimes blocked leaving me 
with an unuseable computer (remote login to kill X still
works and brings back the keyboard). This behaviour
is worse when I use an external screen and keyboard/mouse.
When I use this configuration and disable the panel a
switch from VT7 to a text console freezes everything!
If i drive both the screen and the LCD-panel this is better.

Is there anything I can do about this problems? I just
ordered a port-replicator for my notebook to use external
keyboard/mouse/screen more often but if get an unstable
system this is extremely uncomfortable! :-(

Thanks,

Olaf

XFree86: 4.1-14 (all packages) I also tried the xv-enabled
driver from the gatos project, still bad!
Kernel: 2.4.17
BIOS: Systemsoft 1.01 (rev 2.18) (no update available)

-- 
"Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny!" Frank Zappa