ATI driver installed, now startx and reloading x problems

3.2 P4 Custom Laptop
ATI Mobility Radeon 9600
Fedora Core 1
XFree86 4.3.0
kernel 2.4.22-1.2188

I am fairly new to linux, but learning quickly due to a sink or swim
attitude. This is my first post so don't rip me apart too much.

I finally got the ATI driver to work on my system and now it is
causing problems. When I start X it goes to a black screen with only
my pointer showing. It stays at this screen until I cycle through the
resolutions using Ctrl-Alt-num+. All of my resolutions work fine once
I leave the black screen. This is extremely annoying. I even changed
the order of the resolutions in my XFConfig file.

I think this next problem is related. When I leave X, be it
Ctrl-Alt-backspace, or using the graphical command, I get to the
command line. Then when I try to startx again it totally crashes my
system. It won't respond to anything except hitting the power button.
If I restart the system startx will work again once, then it crashes
the system again.

If anyone has any ideas please help, I have been googling this for
days with no luck. If I left out any info. just let me know.

Thanks so much,
Aaron