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This has been annoying me since the move from 8.29 to 8.30: I have an integrated Xpress 200 on my laptop, and newer proprietary drivers caused the screen to flicker. This has caused me to stick with the older drivers, which restricted upgrades to X.org and the kernel. I was misled by some posts on the Internet to believe that this was the result of using custom modelines.
I have finally solved the problem yesterday. I am posting my findings in case anyone else has been suffering from the same behaviour.
The newer drivers come with an ACPI script, installed under /etc/acpi. The script is invoked every minute and inspects the current power status (i.e., A/C or battery). It then invokes
aticonfig --set-powermode=[MODE]
to adjust the driver to the new settings. Each time this command is executed, it causes the screen to flicker.
Obviously, there is no need to run the script if the power mode has not changed since the last call. I have therefore modified the script to first check the current driver power mode, and execute the mode command only if a new setting is required.
I hope this helps someone.
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Yep, me too. Anyone recommend a course of action?
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Hm, wow. Somehow this thread slipped under my radar when it was first posted back in 2007. I'll have to check if this is still relevant and make a fix to the package if so.
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I need my hand held a bit here...
this seems to be the problem I'm having, ie the ac/battery event being called too frequently, but have no idea how to edit the script. I'm on an asus w3n, will it help to replace apci with asus-laptop and apcid daemon...or just add those and leave acpi daemon?
apologies for my numbnut newbie-ness.
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Well, I removed a-ac-aticonfig from /etc/acpi/events ...flicker stopped, and no-one died so I guess I'll leave it out.
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