[RndTbl] Lock-up problem

[Glen Ditchfield]

The computer is a Dell D600, with an ATI Radeon Mobility 9000.  The OS is SuSE 
9.1, updated religiously.  Today's installed RPMs include 
kernel-default-2.6.5-7, XFree86-4.3.99, fglrx-3.12.0 (ATI's driver), and KDE 
3.3.1.

Every now and then (sometimes once a day, sometimes once a month), the desktop 
stops responding.  The cursor follows the mouse, but clicks and keypresses 
are ignored -- even Ctl-Alt-Delete, Ctl-Alt-Backspace, and Ctl-Alt-F1.  This 
usually happens when I'm scrolling BoingBoing.net (a long page) in Konqueror, 
but I'm pretty sure that's not the only program that triggers the bug.

The machine can be pinged, and I can slogin from elsewhere.  When I do, I find 
X consuming at least 99.8% of CPU.  Killing X causes a complete lock-up; it 
won't answer pings, and I have to power-cycle the 
computer.  /var/log/messages contains nothing between the slogin and the 
restart.

I've had the problem with KDE 3.2 and 3.1, with fglrx 3.11 and 3.9, and with 
XFree's default "radeon" driver.

Have you seen behavior like this?  Do you have any suggestions?