Screen refresh problem on 18.04

Question

I have a DELL Vostro 1000 old notebook.

It is very slow to use but still usable, could be because of 1.8GB RAM or some video difficulty, or because the 1GB swap is usually 50%+ filled up.

But the real problem is the screen only refreshing where the mouse is over and only if there is something activetable there, like a link or a button, otherwise it wont update, quite difficult to use.

specs inxi -SG -! 31

System:    Kernel: 4.15.0-51-generic x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: Gnome 3.28.3 Distro: Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS
Graphics:  Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] RS482M [Mobility Radeon Xpress 200]
           Display Server: x11 (X.Org 1.19.6 ) drivers: fbdev,ati (unloaded: modesetting,vesa,radeon)
           Resolution: 1024x768@76.00hz
           OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 7.0, 128 bits) version: 3.3 Mesa 18.2.8

The problem I have (inside every window) is not the same I saw or read at:

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited Jun 15 '19 at 17:18

1

Currently I added xrefresh (from x11-xserver-utils) to startup apps:

bash -c 'while true;do xrefresh;sleep 1;done'

and the notebook is at least usable now.

edited Jun 15 '19 at 17:18

Pablo Bianchi

17,371

answered Jun 15 '19 at 17:12

Aquarius Power

4,149

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 18 '19 at 05:25

You have a general problem with your hardware acceleration on your system.

OpenGL: renderer: llvmpipe (LLVM 7.0, 128 bits) version: 3.3 Mesa 18.2.8

That means software rendering.

(unloaded: modesetting,vesa,radeon)

The radeon module is unloaded.

Make sure xserver-xorg-video-radeon is on your system. This should be the case.

Make sure that no kernel boot parameter like nomodeset or vag=something is active.

Create /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-radeon.conf.

Section "Device"
    Identifier  "Radeon"
    Driver "radeon"
    Option "AccelMethod" "EXA" 
        Option "DRI" "2"
        Option "TearFree" "on"
EndSection

Screen refresh problem on 18.04

2 Answers2