Display problem with KDE

[phil1349]

have a strange problem with Kubuntu with KDE 4.1.2. Basically the screen goes blank for about half a second on a regular basis. If there is no keyboard or mouse activity it happens every 10 - 15 seconds or so. Moving the mouse or using the keyboard and it occurs every 2-3 secs or so, bloody annoying.

My system is an Athlon 64 on a Foxconn motherboard with onboard SiS Real256E graphic chipset with 256 Mb memory.

It must be a KDE related problem as I tried Mandriva 2009 which also uses KDE 4.1.2 and the same thing happens.

Anyone know a fix ?

[Snowhog]

Re: Display problem with KDE

If enabled, try turning off Desktop Effects.

K Menu > System Settings > Desktop > Desktop Effects > General > Enable desktop effects

[phil1349]

Re: Display problem with KDE

Unfortunately, desktop effects are not even available on the SiS chipset.

I tried one of the earlier alphas which used KDE 4.0 or whatever and that worked fine graphically but it would not connect to the repositories which really made it unusable.

[Snowhog]

Re: Display problem with KDE

Have you tried booting into recovery mode and selecting the Fix option and seeing if fixing the xserver makes any difference?

[phil1349]

Re: Display problem with KDE

I will give it a try but my experience of the fix option is that all it seems to do is replace a broken version of xorg.conf with the last good backup which normally does the biz.

[phil1349]

Re: Display problem with KDE

As expected, Fix had no effect. Should have realised since the live CD version also had the problem. The alpha versions were OK.

Suppose I will have to accept that the SiS chipset is the problem, always has been a bit unstable. Had a SiS sound card a few years ago which was total rubbish compared to the Creative Labs card I replaced it with.