X problem on laptop

[marcus]

The xserver settings seem to get messed up on reboots from session to 
session with my laptop. I get a black screen and the keyboard does not 
respond. This only happens on my laptop, so it must be an xorg issue, 
and/or (K)ubuntu autodetection?

My workaround is to boot using rescue mode, run "startx" as root, log 
out of X, then press Ctrl-D and continue booting as normal into X as my 
user.

What is startx (*not* startkde), run as root, doing to rectify the 
problem?
Note, the actual xorg file remains unchanged. So I'm baffled, and it's 
totally annoying. Does anybody know what X is up to and why this 
setting goes wrong on reboots?


Marcus