screen shuts down a short while after boot

[swefal]

computer too old to mention, dualboot (xp and kubuntu 9.10 upgraded from 9,04)

my computer crashed a few months ago and i just fixed the severely damaged /home partition last week. i managed to do an upgrade to 9.10 even though it gave me a small error message there. since then every time i boot the system there's at least one weird thing that happens: there's an almost constant weird line on the top of the screen (a moving red line), there's no sound on youtube (for instance, although amarok and dragon work fine), most of the times the screen shuts down after about 2 minutes, sometimes i get an error message (each time something different) and for 2 days straight i got 5 Ark windows which were opened automaticaly on startup. not to mention that when i try to install or upgrade something it tells me there's a problem with java, and i can't restore from suspend to disk no matter what i do (screen shuts down during restoration and the system refuses to respond) but the latter one has been since the installation of 9.04.
how can i fix things without having to reinstall everything? i don't have a 9.10 disk, only a 9.04 one.

[Chopstick]

Re: screen shuts down a short while after boot

For graphics problems, have you checked whether your hardware is fully supported? I would recommend uninstalling all proprietary drivers and switching off effects. (Even if only do narrow down the possible problems.)

Also have you tried "fix broken packages" and "fix X server" in the Grub boot menu? (Esc on boot I think...)

You can also reinstall all Java-related packages from the command line.

Personally I use Synaptic as a package manner; KPackagekit does not seem very reliable and somethimes blocks updates. Synaptic works fine though.

Hope that helps... the standard advice would of course be reinstall everything, but without that, it sounds like a complex problem...

Chopstick

[swefal]

Re: screen shuts down a short while after boot

i've disabled powerdevil and i hope that will solve the screen shutting down problem (i did one boot since and the screen is still active).
i have never tried doing anything from the grub menu and i have no idea how to do it. i thought the problem was with the power management for the screen since besides in some games the x server seems to work fine.
i haven't had a chance to try out the new package manager yet so i'm still using synaptic. i have no idea how to fix the java problem. i tried uninstalling and reinstalling but when i reinstalled it said that there's a problem with the package (again).
personally, i think there are too many "broken" things and eventually i'd have to make a 9.10 cd and reinstall all from that. the question is, can i do that and still have my /home and my installed programs?