Yes and Yes

is the install-i686-lx important, or is that taken care of automatically now? I am unable to do it when the wiki instructions say to because as soon as it installes the nvidia drivers it restarts the gdm and then I can't do anything locally on the computer, only via my network. Once the nvidia drivers are installed and the computer is using "nvidia" as the driver (this is changed automatically by the install-nvidia script) I cannot alt-ctl-f1 anymore. I can again if I edit XF86Config-4 remotely to change the drivers to "nv" and reboot (I can't just restart the gdm, that doesn't work)

Is this definitely not a driver problem? Is there some easy way to download new drivers?

Have you fixed your /etc/lilo.conf so that it says "vga=normal" and rerun lilo. If not that may fix the Ctl-Alt-F1 failure...

Your X log files look fine aside from those waits. It's not like it can't find a valid mode line or is trying to use a vert or horz frequency that's out of spec, or any of half a dozen other fairly common problems. I'm running out of ideas on that count.

The problem does sound teasingly familair however. What kind of TV are you hooking up too? What input connections does it have available? Are you REALLY hooking up via a composite video connector?

Maybe your TV doesn't like the 800x600 resolution for some reason, try setting it to use 640x480 by rearranging the order of the "Modes" for each color "Depth" in the "Screen" section of your XF86Config-4.

Oh, and the install-i686-lx is taken care of.

my lilo.conf said vga=normal from the get go (which I find a little odd because I had written it down before for my previous install...)

This is the same tv as I was using with the old box, nothing was changed as far as connections, I just unplugged the yellow plug for video and plugged it into the card in the new box...

Again, since everything works fine when it's booting this just seems really odd. (doesn't the install work in 800x600 when you use the tv boot option, that displays fine on my tv, too)

I'm seriously considering just ordering a new nForce chipset motherboard (since this one is a VIA and you guys are saying to avoid VIA, wish I'd seen that before I'd ordered this board...)

I'll try the 640x480 trick though and let you know how it goes.

The TV is an old console Quasar. It has Composite video and audio inputs as well as Svideo. I haven't use the Svideo in the past because I also have a vcr hooked to the TV via an A/B switch so that we can watch live tv when the mythbox is recording (I only have one tuner).

Well, I tried that, and no dice. I even tried with SVIDEO in the XF86Config-4 and using the svideo to the tv instead of composite. Again, no luck.

I'm looking at the BIOSTAR M7NCG 400 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard at Newegg. If $65 can fix my problems, then I may be willing to throw money at it...

Anyone else have any ideas?

The new motherboard did the job. (Bioware M7NCG 400).

Thanks for all your help, TJC. At least now my XFConfig86-4 file is fine-tuned with all the excess crap removed.

Now I just need a quieter CPU fan (the one I bought to throw in is 30dBA, sounds like a jet)