I have experienced a similar issue, and I've concluded the problem is an interaction between xrandr and the ATI fglrx drivers.
My video card has a TV output, and the display flickers whenever xrandr probes the card. According to Bug #134365 the Intel driver suffered a similar problem, way back during the gutsy release. I have my card connected to the VGA port on a Sony TV, so it's not a standard LCD display. The TV may not respond in the same manner as a standard flat-panel or monitor. `xrandr -q` causes the flickering. When I run certain applications, notably "Crossover Linux Standard" and "Display Preferences", the display flickers constantly and the one of my CPU cores is 98-100%. Luckily I have a multicore or it would lock up my machine. I deactivated the ATI driver, purged all traces of fglrx with aptitude, and switched to the F/OSS radeon driver and the problem went away. I can open Display with only a single quick flicker of the screen and applications running in Crossover no longer consume all of a CPU core. Of course, I've lost 3D application performance in Blender, and enabling Compiz gives me a "white screen of death" so it's a painful workaround. Perhaps some of the fixes that were used in Bug #134365 might apply to the restricted fglrx drivers as well. -- Opening the display preferences dialog, almost freezes the operating system https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/370563 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
