Comment 27 for bug 366651

I have experienced a similar problem on my Dell 5100. For me it seems to have worsened considerably with new kernel versions.

I started running Ubuntu Intrepid on a Dell 5100 laptop at the beginning of March (2009). I don't recall any display problems for the first few weeks. Then a few weeks ago I noticed occasional pixel artifacts and odd horizontal lines. It worsened, and a few days ago became intolerable.

For me the severity seems to depend upon the Linux kernel version. When running 2.6.27-14-generic I get prolonged colorful snowstorms, green and blue blizzards, that last anywhere from seconds to minutes, recurring at intervals from one minute to maybe fifteen minutes. My display becomes pretty much incomprehensible and useless.

Running 2.6.27-11-generic (the previous kernel automatically downloaded by my system update) is somewhat better, but still frustrating. The blizzards are less frequent, but I do see many artifacts and lines.

I've gone back to 2.6.27-7-generic for now. With that kernel I get zero snowstorms (that I recall) and just a few pixel artifacts similar to the snapshots Aron posted.

I can also still boot Windows XP. No displays problems occur then, so it doesn't appear to be failing hardware.

Other technical details:

Here's the panel ID from Xorg.0.log:
(II) RADEON(0): Panel ID string: IBM J1838 ITSX95

Chipset: "ATI Radeon Mobility M7 LW (AGP)" (ChipID = 0x4c57)

This is a Dell 5100, about six years old. Native panel resolution is 1400x1050.

Radeon drivers loading:
(II) Matched radeon from file name radeon.ids
(==) Matched radeon for the autoconfigured driver
(II) LoadModule: "radeon"
(II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers//radeon_drv.so
(II) Module radeon: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
(II) AIGLX: Loaded and initialized /usr/lib/dri/radeon_dri.so

My /etc/X11/xorg.conf is all defaults, apparently set by dexconf. I have attempted no tweaking of settings.

I hope that's useful.

Cheers