[Ubuntu-ZW] Can someone please help me fix problem with ATI Radeon HD 4570 graphics card

[Gyron Mkwebo]

hie

I recently purchased an Asus X61s laptop, with intel duo core (2.1Ghz),
4Gig RAM, 320G harddrive and an ATI Radeon hd 4570 graphics card with
512Mb ram. I tried to install my favourite OS, Ubuntu (9.10), everything
going fine, until i booted into my fresh install, anticipating as smooth
a ride as i always get, only to have frequent and random hard-lockups!
The lockups are so bad that i can hardly do anything useful with it. 
I googled (using my other machine of course, this one would freeze the
moment firefox gets going) and found out that ubuntu 9.10 has issues
with the specific card on my machine. I downloaded and installed the
proprietary driver from the ATI website, which seemed to have solved the
problem, only to get hardlockups again! I tried different suggestions
from the web, like booting with the noapic option in grub, but still the
problem persisted. It got worse when i started booting into the black
screen of death, just from the blue!
I did a fresh install of ubuntu and tried to run a full upgrade, hoping
that Ubuntu could have effected a fix for my problem, but then, the
machine freezes in the middle of the update! Is there anyone who has
managed to solve this problem with the radeon graphics card, or is the
problem from some other source other than the card? What can i do to
work around this problem coz i cant get myself to use the Windows vista
the computer came with (i don't like windows at all)?