TTY / Virtual Terminal issues.

I've been using [i]some[/i] version of Ubuntu on my laptop for a couple of years now and since somewhere around v. 6.10, the TTY (CTRL+ALT+F2) extends past the bottom of the screen, making it damn near impossible to use. I've tried setting different modes - vga=xxx - in the grub menu.lst to no avail . The best result I've gotten is that a message shows up in the correct resolution saying I've selected an invalid mode, press space to continue, but when it gets to GDM and I go the the TTY, there's nothing there. On top of this, the usplash doesn't work either. It would seem that they are related in some way, as both would be dependent on framebuffer resolution, but I have yet to fix it. Anyone have any ideas? Current configuration - Dell Latitude C400 - Pentium III Mobile @ 1.2 gHz, 512MB PC133 RAM, Intel i830M IGP, using the standard i810 driver. I do have the xorg framebuffer driver installed as well (xserver-xorg-video-fbdev or something like that). GRUB menu.lst is at default state again - so i get no usplash, and the TTY is up to it's old antics.