My Dell Inspiron 6400 has a ATI x1400 video card and 1680x1050 WSXGA+ display. I have observed this problem in various versions of Ubuntu and in Android x86. Most recently I observed it in Ubuntu 17.04 Zesty Zapus with 4.10 kernel.

Sometimes after a mode change, the display becomes unstable. This may involve:
- white lines flickering to the right of some sharp contrast edges in images
- vertical bars coming from the bottom
- large areas of the screen flickeringly appearing in the wrong location
I don't think it's ever one kind of corruption only. If one happens, other kinds will also happen shortly.

When booting up, if the problem occurs, first signs are visible after the kernel switches from true text mode to native resolution graphical text mode, before X starts running. I know this is a mailing list for the X driver, but I'm under the impression that kernel driver and Xorg driver development work is done together. Sorry if I'm posting to the wrong place.

The problem absolutely never happens in Windows 7. It also absolutely never starts or stops on its own. My usual workaround is to use xrandr to switch to a different resolution and then back to the native resolution. Turning off the display via "xset dpms force standby" and then turning it back on or going to sleep or hibernation and then resuming can also make corruption start or stop. The probability of corruption is low enough that I can put up with it and use the workaround, but it would be nice to have a real fix.

There is absolutely no sign of any corruption occurring in video memory or rendering errors, and it seems to purely be an issue with communication between the graphics card and display. I've read something about PLL issues and I'm wondering if this is PLL instability.

Thanks for reading,
Boris
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