[Novices] Black screen of death

[Brock Inglehart]

Running SuSE 9.1.  Getting complete screen lockup
under two conditions.
1	When I go to the dialog box where you change your
screen saver.  As soon as I go to that "box", the
whole screen locks up.
2	When the screen times out in its power saving
whatever, the screen cannot be retreived by moving the
mouse, hitting keys or Cntl, Alt, return.
Have to reboot to restart
This started right after I changed my screen saver. 
How do I fix.
Brock Inglehart