This problem started pretty much suddenly as I started up my laptop. That's basically what my screen looks like right now, and I'd like to hear what people who are actually knowledgeable about this sort of thing before I crack open my laptop. I'm using a HP Compaq NC 8000 laptop with Ubuntu 8.10 as the OS.

Laptop repair is usually a no-no, so I wouldn't recommend ever doing that unless it's just one modular part that you can replace.

 

 

 

It looks like screen damage, but if it was, it wouldn't show up on a screenshot. :-k

 

 

 

All I found was the thread in your screenie :wall:

Try reinstalling/updating your graphics card's drivers, turning it off and on again, and perhaps one of those dead pixel program things might help, I'm not sure.

Is it just for certain windows or anything in that area of your screen?

 

Does it happen when using other gtk themes?

 

What are your settings for visual effects (Compiz? The standard ubuntu ones?)

 

Reinstall any third party graphics drivers?

It's on all the screens, all the way down to my desktop wallpaper. Visual effects are set to none. I'll see about reinstalling the drivers tomorrow, as it's almost 4am here :oops:

Since you are able to take a screenshot of it, it is a driver issue. That's what I concluded anyway. If all else fails of course you can reinstall Ubuntu. I have gotten similar glitches with compiz-fusion, can't remember what I did to fix it though, sorry.

Yeah I'm assuming a driver issue too. Hopefully a reinstall is all that is needed.

Bumped because the problem has suddenly gotten a lot more severe since updating to 9.04.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is what my screen looks like. I've been having this problem for several weeks now but never really bothered to do anything about it. However when I updated from 8.10 o 9.04, the problem suddenly got a lot more severe. This is what it looked like under 8.10:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The red stuff on the shutdown window was just something that happened when you dragged a window around. For some reason that doesn't happen anymore. The problem looks exactly the same when I plug in an external monitor.

 

 

 

lspci | grep VGA



01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV350 [Mobility Radeon 9600 M10]

[hide=xorg.conf]

# This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using

# values from the debconf database.

#

# Edit this file with caution, and see the xorg.conf manual page.

# (Type "man xorg.conf" at the shell prompt.)

#

# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades *only*

# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg

# package.

#

# Note that some configuration settings that could be done previously

# in this file, now are automatically configured by the server and settings

# here are ignored.

#

# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated

# again, run the following command:

#   sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg



Section "Device"

Identifier	"Configured Video Device"

EndSection



Section "Monitor"

Identifier	"Configured Monitor"

EndSection



Section "Screen"

Identifier	"Default Screen"

Monitor		"Configured Monitor"

Device		"Configured Video Device"

EndSection

[/hide]

Have you got the latest drivers for your graphics card? (assuming they have linux releases?)

Apparently the version of Ubuntu I'm currently running wasn't using any drivers at all. Someone on another forum directed me to this site, which looked promising but yielded the following error when I tried to install the whole thing through the terminal as described in the installation instructions:

jx@x-laptop:~/Desktop$ sh ./ati-driver-installer-9-3-x86.x86_64.run

Created directory fglrx-install.uUiQhZ

Verifying archive integrity... All good.

Uncompressing ATI Proprietary Linux Driver-8.593............................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. .................................................. ..........................................

==================================================

ATI Technologies Linux Driver Installer/Packager

==================================================



Error: ./default_policy.sh does not support version

default:v2:i686:lib::none:2.6.28-11-generic; make sure that the version is being

correctly set by --iscurrentdistro



Removing temporary directory: fglrx-install.uUiQhZ 

8.12 - http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/l ... linux.aspx

 

8.10 - http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/l ... linux.aspx

 

 

 

Older drivers, but give it a go.