Gutsy boot problem

[pkaplan1 at comcast.net]

I did a clean install of Gutsy on a Thinkpad T41.  Now, after selecting the default kernel boot option in Grub, the system freezes after clearing the Grub screen.  However, if I select the option to boot the same kernel in recovery mode, the system boots normally to a command line with root logged in.  At that point if I logout of the root account (CTRL-D), the system continues to start kdm at which point everything seems to work normally, i.e., I can login into user accounts.

What's the problem here and how to allow booting of the default kernel?
Paul