[CentOS] Old harware (intel 82845G card) stopped working after update (centos 6)

Hello.  I apology in advance if I am not reporting things correctly,
but my knowledge about these things is very limited.

I have five Transtec computers, approximately born in July 2005; they
have an intel 82845G video card.

The last 'yum update' was on January 30, 2014.  I did not reboot the
machines at that time.  I cannot be sure about the date of the 'yum
update' preceding that one, but I think is was on September 7, 2013.

Last Friday (February 14, 2014), 4 of those 5 computers stopped
working properly after some action on them.

The problem is: black screen with only the arrow of the mouse (mouse
is working correctly :-).  Apart from that, the computers are OK: one
can use Ctrl-Alt-F1, etc.

For sure, one of the action which led to the problem was a reboot.  I
cannot be 100% sure about the action, which was simply a change of
screen: the machine was OK; then I changed the screen; it did not work
any more; then I rebooted. But my experience is that, sometimes, even
under normal condition, it does not work right away, or perhaps not at
all, after changing the screen.

The 5th computer, on which nothing has been done, is still working
just fine.

NB: for sure, there has been at least one reboot on at least one of
the 5 machines between September (or whatever date at which the
previous 'yum update' has been performed) and January, and the problem
did not show up.

For what it's worth, the following 2 packages are installed:

xorg-x11-drv-intel-devel-2.21.12-2.el6.i686
xorg-x11-drv-intel-2.21.12-2.el6.i686

Also, here is the output of 'lspci | grep 82845':

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE/PE DRAM Controller/Host-Hub Interface (rev 01)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device (rev 01)

Based on the data, my best guess is that the problem I have is due to
some recent change in the centos packages.  Perhaps it was supposed to
be so? (I.e., no longer supporting old hardware?).  If so, at any
rate, I'll be grateful if someone can suggest a workaround, or perhaps
a hint towards that goal.

Regards,
Alain


-- 
EOST (École et Observatoire des Sciences de la Terre) 
IPG (Institut de Physique du Globe) | alain.cochard at unistra.fr
5 rue René Descartes   [bureau 106] | Phone: +33 (0)3 68 85 50 44 
F-67084 Strasbourg Cedex, France    | Fax:   +33 (0)3 68 85 01 25     







-- 
EOST (École et Observatoire des Sciences de la Terre) 
IPG (Institut de Physique du Globe) | alain.cochard at unistra.fr
5 rue René Descartes   [bureau 106] | Phone: +33 (0)3 68 85 50 44 
F-67084 Strasbourg Cedex, France    | Fax:   +33 (0)3 68 85 01 25