Visual tearing on external display on a laptop

[Jake Briggs]

Hi All

So I am having some issues with an external monitor (VGA-0) on a laptop. 
On the advice on someone from the #radeon irc channel, I tried to update 
the ati driver. I am running Ubuntu 8.04, the version of the ati module 
that ships with it is 6.8.0. The issue I was having - that the external 
monitor would not turn on - was solved by compiling and installing the 
ati driver version 6.9.0! Yay!

But then I had some other issues. Basically there is some visual 
"tearing" I suppose, horizontal white lines that appear on the external 
monitor only, kinda like static kinda. This happens when moving windows 
around the desktop, and when playing video on the external monitor :(

I have tried cloning the display, having it "left-of", haivng a smaller 
resolution etc.... It did it at first, then it didn't long enough to 
watch a movie, then upon reboot the next day the problem was back :( I 
just can't think where to go from here. All I can think of is that there 
is some buffer under run issue somewhere....

Perhaps there is some incompatibility between the xserver and the 
version of the ati driver I am using? Perhaps ati 6.9.0 is still buggy? 
Any hints or suggestions would be appreciated!

Jake

- 
Jacob Briggs
Systems Engineer

Core Technology Limited
Level 1, NZX Centre
11 Cable Street
Wellington
Phone +64 4 801 2252

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