the reason why safe mode works is it doesnt load the graphics driver it only runs in vesa mode i know this issue with ati cards quite well as i had to fix the installer for the hd3650 to be 10.5.4 compatible in my distro. I had to make sure my installer would over write files that were newer than those being installed. Console is a complete program not shell or cli. It allows you to read all system errors, logs and crash reports. Just look at it and youll get the jist of it. Its in applications/utilities

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