[i915] [intrepid ] screen flickers while loading X, running xrandr or playing a video (i915)

I have the same issue with the same hardware. I get horizontal black lines flashing on the screen at login, and the screen appears to "twitch" (portions of the screen seem to be randomly flashed, appearing in different locations) whenever I run xrandr or start any programs, like games, that change the resolution.

This never happened with any versions of Ubuntu before Intrepid.

I confirm this. I have the same problem on Intrepid, with the same hardware. Hardy doens't have the problem.

[This is an automatic notice.]

We'd like to forward your bug upstream, however upstream requires
that you first test it against their newer driver code.

To save you the effort of building the driver from source, we've built
packages for the driver and its new dependencies.

So you have a couple options:

 1. Download and test .debs for intrepid, from:
     https://edge.launchpad.net/~intel-gfx-testing/+archive

 -or-

 2. Download and test the Jaunty alpha-2 (or newer) Live CD,
     (which includes a beta of the new xserver 1.6 as well).
     See http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/9.04/ for ISOs

Thanks ahead of time! You can simply reply to this email to report your
findings.

P.S., if you wish to forward your bug upstream yourself, please follow
these directions to do so:
  http://intellinuxgraphics.org/how_to_report_bug.html

This problem still exists in Jaunty after login but then the whole X server dies and GDM restarts so I can't test it with XV but this i s a different problem.

Is it exactly the same symptoms, or has it changed? The upstream bug says that if it occurs only with Xv, we should report a new bug; otherwise we should reopen the upstream bug with additional details. Can you do some additional testing as best you can, to determine what route we should take?

Also, have you reported the xserver dying issue? Which bug#?

Same symptoms at least on gdm login. I couldn't test it further because shortly after the flickering X dies and GDM restarts. Even if I try to change to console with ctrl + alt + f1 I only see vertical colored and black bars and can't do anything except of changing back to the X slot. I have tested it with todays daily live cd.
That's why I haven't posted more information. The intel driver was one of the best X drivers but it gets worse and worse with every release. First problem was the textured video which doesn't work really because of tearing, then the flickering and now the dying. Last ones seem to be an i915 problem but video watching is annoying in Intrepid even with other Intel graphic cards and according to manpage it isn't possible to activate Overlay without changing the source. Not to mention the great performance loss.
And btw. the greatest part is to just closing the upstream bug report without fixing anything.
I will post more debug information soon but it is really annoying and time consuming. It is fine if it leads to a better driver but atm. it doesn't seem so.

Ok, I have reported the (maybe on of the) crash(es) at Bug #312849 . There was one with and one without compiz so maybe another one will follow.

The garbage after changing to console with ctrl + alt + f* seems to be general Jaunty Intel driver problem and is reported under Bug #312851.

Thanks, I've reopened the bug. Please add your findings upstream.
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=17405

Can anyone confirm this workaround?

1. add this line to your xorg.conf device section.
Option "Monitor-TV" "TV"
2. add a monitor section
Section "Monitor"
        Identifier "TV"
        option "ignore" "true"
EndSection

unggnu, yes I can confirm that the workaround works for me (Intrepid, 915i series Intel video card). Not only it removes the flickering while using xrandr/videos, but also the constant flickering on KDE (a related bug, afaik).

Yes, the "KDE bug" is related. A KDE service polls xrandr every x seconds which results in the flickering on effected machines.

unggnu, I can also confirm your workaround. With intrepid, I had been using the outdated version 2.3.2 of the intel xorg drivers to get around this issue. However, now that I've upgraded to jaunty and am now using the latest jaunty version, I can confirm that your workaround works with the latest intel drivers.

From the upstream bug report, this was fixed upstream Mar 16, and the fix is available as of 2.6.99.903.

This isn't fixed until kms is enabled. But since it is planned for Karmic this could be still marked as fixed release.