atyfb - system hangs at bootup prior to enabling framebuffer console -- linux 2.6.18

More than 50% of the time my laptop hangs when booting with 

... video=atyfb:1400x1050.

I have seen similar occurrences reported here and there with recent 2.6
kernels but nothing very clear as to whether this is a known problem or
whether a patch or workaround has already been provided.

I have not been able to determine if the hang was random -- booting to
another system and then rebooting back into this debian "etch" system
appears (???) to fix the problem.

Relevant "lspci -vvv" output if it matters:

0000.01.00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Rage Mobility P/M AGP 2x (rev 64) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
             Subsystem: Dell: Unknown device 009e
             Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping+ SERR- FastB2B-
             Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
             Latency: 66 (2000ns min), Cache Line Size: 0x08 (32 bytes)
             Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 11
             Region 0: Memory at fd000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
             Region 1: I/O ports at 2000 [size=256]
             Region 2: Memory at fc000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
             Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled] [size=128K]
             Capabilities: <available only to root>

I would be glad to provide additional info.

Thanks,
cga

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