Comment 4 for bug 465470

Same problem here, I use a ATI Radeon HD4870 (RV770 chip).
Since I upgraded to Kubuntu 9.10, every about 2-3 startups KDE is not starting, but instead I get this GTK-like message "Ubuntu is running in low-graphics mode".

I found out that if I click on console login, and then do a Ctrl+F2 and Ctrl+F7 again, suddenly KDE starts up magically, running perfectly normal, even with 3D desktop effects.

lspci -vvv
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RV770 [Radeon HD 4870]
        Subsystem: ATI Technologies Inc Device 0502
        Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx+
        Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
        Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 32 bytes
        Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 29
        Region 0: Memory at d0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
        Region 2: Memory at f7ee0000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
        Region 4: I/O ports at c000 [size=256]
        Expansion ROM at f7ec0000 [disabled] [size=128K]
        Capabilities: <access denied>
        Kernel driver in use: fglrx_pci
        Kernel modules: fglrx, radeon