system settings destroys xconfig

Hardware Database Submission id: 015cc835a039fa9159cb29914918ab72

I have not been able to use power management (?) properly with this system through the last 2 releases of Kubuntu. If I alter the settings such as the time before the monitor goes to sleep my system will not reboot next time. The xconfig file is trashed and is usually unrecoverable. I had to do a complete reinstall of 7.10 about 2 weeks ago because of this and I have not touched the power management area of system settings for the display and I have had no problems. This is the longest problem free period in the last 3 releases.

I had a Sylvania L17 that I used when the problem first occurred. I have replaced that with a new Acer P223w and the problem has occurred with both devices. I have done searches and tried the various methods to do an xorg reconfig in the emergency, character based start process and they did not work. A manual patch to make the monitor type a vesa/vga did solve the problem, partially, on a couple of occasions. The last two times it happened that fix would not work.

I also found that I often had shutdown problems where the screen would change to a funny multicolored mess and the cpu would not power down. I had to do a hard power down, but I cannot confirm that it was related to the display system settings changes. I have not had that problem since the last reinstall with no changes to the display settings. For the last two weeks I have had good, clean shutdowns with the Kubuntu shutdown splash screen working perfectly.

The symptoms are that on reboot, after any changes to the display area of system settings, I get the normal Kubuntu splash screen followed by either a completely blank screen or the small hollow "X" that alternately changes to a blank screen every 5 or 10 seconds.

If you require any other information I would be pleased to try and provide it.