After I did an install of 8.2, I noticed that the video had been set up as 1600 x 1280. This is a bit more than I normally use so I went into KDE and had it change the video down to 1280 x 1024. It worked.... Then I noticed that the new setting would only be valid for the current session unless one checks the 'have KDE make changes at startup' box, so that KDE will reset the resolution at every startup. I checked the box. From that point on, about 3 out of 4 boots would hang at the point where the X login screen should have appeared. The monitor would lose its video signal, go dead, and the entire machine was hung. None of the usual restarts would restart the machine including the 'magic sysrq' restart. I then used SAX2 to change the video down to 1280 x 1024, and told KDE to stay the hell outta the way. <g> And have had no problems since.