X hangs (ATI MOBILITY RADEON 7500 on Sony VAIO PCG-8A6M, GRX316G with X)

[Mariano Kamp <mkamp@gmx.de>]

Hi,

  I am not sure how to describe this problem properly. Basically my machine hangs every now and then. Sometimes it takes 20 minutes, sometimes five and it is also sometimes running for 60 minutes until it hangs.
Hangs means, I cannot do anything anymore. At least CTRL+ALT+DEL/BS and CTRL+ALT+F1 do not work anymore.

  I do have the feeling that it happens usually when I am also accessing the disk, but it is very hard to be sure with these things.

  Is there any log I can have a look at? /var/log/messages and XFree86.0.log doesn't seem to have something meaningful regarding the crash in there.
  The last possibly relevant message is: xfs: ignoring font path element /usr/lib/X11/fonts/CID (unreadable).

  I do currently have X11 configured for "vesa". Is there any better driver for my card? How do I know?  



Cheers,
Mariano