Arch Linux

elahav

Member

From: Ottawa, ON

Registered: 2005-04-18

Posts: 90

Distorted image with new xorg

I have a laptop with an ATI Radeon Xpress 200M, using the open-source radeon driver. Everything works fine with xorg 7.2.
After moving to 7.3, I get a strange phenomenon: everything displays as expected, only with garbage pixels interspersed all over. It's quite difficult to explain: think of it as a grid of red and green pixels superimposed over the screen. Moreover, when I close a window, there seems to be a ghost of its image left behind. I would have posted a screenshot, but the screen grabber turns out a perfectly normal image, once displayed on another computer.

You can find the necessary configuration file, log file and xrandr output over here:

http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~elahav/xorg.conf
http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~elahav/Xorg.0.log
http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~elahav/xrandr.out

I have already tried the second incarnation of the new radeon driver, to no avail. The vesa driver is unable to handle my screen resolution (1280x768), but it looks as though its plagued by the same problem.

Cerebral

Forum Fellow

From: Waterloo, ON, CA

Registered: 2005-04-08

Posts: 3,108

Website

Re: Distorted image with new xorg

I've never heard this issue before, but taking a wild guess, that sounds like some quirky LCD issue... I wonder if the new xorg handles your monitor wrong.  I don't suppose you've got an external monitor around to test with?

elahav

Member

From: Ottawa, ON

Registered: 2005-04-18

Posts: 90

Re: Distorted image with new xorg

Actually I do, and it shows up fine on the external monitor.
If you're around UW, perhaps I can show you

atordo

Member

Registered: 2007-04-21

Posts: 147

Re: Distorted image with new xorg

I use a Radeon 7500 with the same driver and upgrading to 7.3 has been a pain in the ass. I won't detail every little nuisance, but about your problem, I experiment something similar using zattoo (a program to view TV streamed over the net). In my case horizontal white blinking lines will appear when the program is in use and I switch desktops. Fortunately they disappear when the program is finished and only zattoo seems to trigger them as far as I know.

BTW, laptop also. No external monitor to test right now.

elahav

Member

From: Ottawa, ON

Registered: 2005-04-18

Posts: 90

Re: Distorted image with new xorg

I don't think it's the same issue. My pixelation (is that a word?) problem is constant and independent of any running programme. Also, the image is static, without any blinking.
I have also tried the fglrx driver, which resulted in numerous problems (wrong DPI, flickering, hard-lockups), but that's  another story.

atordo

Member

Registered: 2007-04-21

Posts: 147

Re: Distorted image with new xorg

The issue may be not the same but the cause may: radeon driver had severe changes and not all of them tested enough.

Some days I wish I'd never left 25x80 textmode

a1ex

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2007-02-16

Posts: 91

Re: Distorted image with new xorg

It really looks like the subpixels are handled wrong...
I got this effect on a thinkpad x31 with Radeon Mobility M6 Chip using "ati" driver.

atordo

Member

Registered: 2007-04-21

Posts: 147

Re: Distorted image with new xorg

Just for the record, I've been changing modes and at 1400x1050 (I use 1152x864 mostly) I've experimented a similar phenomenon to the original post, only the pixels are white instead of red and green. Program independent.

a1ex

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2007-02-16

Posts: 91

Re: Distorted image with new xorg

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=297763

Did the trick for me - and I think we're talking about the same phenomen.

atordo

Member

Registered: 2007-04-21

Posts: 147

Re: Distorted image with new xorg

Thanks for the pointer. Just upgraded to xf86-video-ati 6.7.195-3 and the problems seem gone

elahav

Member

From: Ottawa, ON

Registered: 2005-04-18

Posts: 90

Re: Distorted image with new xorg

Yes, much better now. The annoying grid is gone and the picture is clear as before the upgrade.
On the other hand, I can't navigate among the consoles (with ALT-CTRL-Fx) - all I get is a white screen for all but the X session.

nirvanix

Member

From: Saskatoon

Registered: 2005-01-31

Posts: 193

Re: Distorted image with new xorg

I use the latest fglrx driver. It worked great on xorg 7.2, but now after upgrading to 7.3, I have the same problem as described here. I'd like to downgrade to 7.2, but not sure what packages I need to remove?

---

I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts...

mips

Member

Registered: 2006-09-16

Posts: 11

Website

Re: Distorted image with new xorg

Hi all!

I've got the same problem on my Radeon Xpress 200M with fglrx driver. At random time some garbage of mostly black pixels appear in the lower-right 100x100px area of the screen and remains there until I switch to the console and come back. From time to time some garbage appears next to the mouse pointer, however it disappears quickly.

The problem exists since upgrade of the X.org.

The hint about xrandr given by a1ex doesn't work for me.
When I load the Open Source drivers it seems to work fine, but I loose direct rendering, which I need.

same exact problem here, probably caused by the X.org update (didn't happen a while ago).
temporarily solved by switching via alt+Fx and back, using proprietary drivers.