Runaway Processes After Update (kconf_update Kicker-3.4-reve)

I ran the latest update of my AMD64 suse 10.2 using Yast. When I reboot the system is slow, and the login screen never shows up. Logging in as root and running ps shows two processess constantly spawing: Kconf_update and kicker-3.4-reve. I am on an old-fashioned dail-up connection, and it is quite possible one of the downloads failed. Does anyone have any ideas? I can probably use wvdial to make a connection, and run Yast in curses mode, but what should I update?
Any comments, suggestions much appreciated.