Weird X Problem

[Patrick C]

Sounds like a problem with your video card (not enough video RAM?) or a
specific application causing problems. The problem sounds like it would be
difficult to diagnose with just this information. Do you use any "desktop
effects"? What kind of video card do you have, what driver are you using?
Also, is the video RAM shared? In that case, you could probably increase it
without upgrading your hardware.

I had similar symptoms a few years ago, but I was on Windows. I upgraded the
video card on it for gaming/general performance with a cheap ($50),
previous-gen, low-end video card that had still had more video RAM and that
fixed the problem. I wouldn't be surprised if a higher resolution puts more
of a strain on the graphics card and that's why it shows up. Which monitor
is higher resolution? You should check to see if the problem persists with
the "bad" monitor without using the docking station, as well.

On Mon, Jul 21, 2008 at 6:20 AM, Vaughn Treude <vltreude at deru.com> wrote:

> Normally when I encounter a Linux problem my first course of action is
> to Google for a solution. This time I'm not even sure what to call it.
> "X Windows scroll problem" and "X Windows bad repaint" don't return any
> useful information.
> I'm running Unbuntu Hardy Heron on a Dell Latitude D830.  So far the
> problem has only shown up when it's hooked to the docking station and
> connected to my Philips CM800 monitor.
> Since the screens are different dimensions (4:3 and 16:9), it surprised
> me at first that it worked as well as it did. When I boot it with the
> monitor attached, it sets the resolution to match the Philips. On The
> Dell, the bottom of the screen is chopped off. That's OK for my purposes.
> What's started happening is that window repainting has stopped working
> for certain actions. When I try to scroll a document in Open Office, the
> whole thing goes black. If I minimize and restore the window, it's OK.
> The problem also occurs when I drag a terminal window across the screen.
> That goes black as well. Again the problem can be fixed by
> minimize/restore.
> The first time I encountered this, I figured that X Windows had gotten
> in a bad state, so I logged off and back on. (This has always been one
> of my favorite features of Linux; you don't have to reboot to fix a
> problem with the windowing system.) Now when I log off it never comes
> back to the log on screen; it just stays black. I end up rebooting it.
> The last couple of times I have done this, the problem is still there.
> I've looked in the Xorg log file and all that's in there seems to relate
> to initialization of the monitors.
> At some point I will probably get a new monitor (because of the
> dimensional issues) and give this one to my kid, but I've got no
> guarantee it won't also happen with the new monitor.
> Has anyone else encountered this problem? Does it have a name?
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Vaughn
>
> ---------------------------------------------------
> PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
> To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings:
> http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/pipermail/plug-discuss/attachments/20080722/0cdbf643/attachment.htm