Comment 1 for bug 503260

Problem solved.

Found this solution for OpenSuSe, but it probably works with any system that loads from grub and uses fglrx 8.539

http://forums.opensuse.org/hardware/428160-11-2-fixes-xpress-200-other-legacy-cards.html

The "black screen of death" can be fixed by editing /boot/grub/menu.lst and adding "vga=0xf06" and the end of your "kernel" line. This can also be entered during boot, if you know/have no other way to access the file, by editing the grub menu at boot (esc @ grub, select installation, e, select kernel, e, type at the end) but it's temporary of course.