>     
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/6469
I'm no Linux buff, but I try ...
Well, Vic Watson fixed my box, 7.04 but he amd64 installation. 
Assuming that Vic hasn't fixed your problem already, and that 
some of the problems are the same, there could be two issues:
1) The assumption about what your monitor can handle defaults 
too high.
2) Especially if you are using a proprietary or closed-source 
driver, /etc/X11/xorg.conf may be incorrectly configured.
Note that to edit the following files you need administrator 
privileges, I used
  sudo nano <filename>
to avoid problems with file not being written.
The first problem is down to the default screen resolution being 
silly - in mine it was 1600x1200, which the monitor couldn't 
handle. Fix this in two places:
  /boot/grub/menu.lst
for each bootable kernel, make sure there is a VGA=xxx, VGA=792 
for 1024x768, e.g.
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.20-10-generic root=UUID=a152bcaa-2553-464e-
b2c4-023fce8dc5ed ro splash pci=assign-busses vga=792
Just add the VGA=xxx if it isn't already there. Now you can 
force the size of the splash screen in
  /etc/usplash.conf
by making sure that there are lines of the form:
  xres=1024
  yres=768
If you still have problems, then it's in
  /etc/X11/xorg.conf
and I'm out of my depth! But the issue for my install was the 
section dealing with the screen:
Section "Screen"
        Identifier "Default Screen"
# VRW changed this to make login screen the right size.
# Device "ATI Technologies Inc R430 [Radeon X800 XL] (PCIe)"
        Device "aticonfig-Device[0]"
        Monitor "Generic Monitor"
The device string has to match something already defined, 
otherwise the login screen goes back to 1600x1200.
There's discussion about all this at:
  
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/usplash/+bug/86666
Making a 1600x1200 assumption at initial boot is a really dumb 
assumption, especially for a Linux distro with an African 
philosophy and usage in Africa. Defaulting to 640x480 or 
1024x768 would be much more sensible. When I did the WinXP64 
installation on the same box, it wasn't perfect, but at least I 
had a usable system at all stages.
Stephen
--
Stephen Pelc, stephen@???
MicroProcessor Engineering Ltd - More Real, Less Time
133 Hill Lane, Southampton SO15 5AF, England
tel: +44 (0)23 8063 1441, fax: +44 (0)23 8033 9691
web: 
http://www.mpeforth.com - free VFX Forth downloads