Black dots in upper left area

[Anxiety35]

This just started happening for me today. I've been running 8.04 since the day it came out.

I installed a few packages today such as StartUpManager and some numlock thing. Nothing to do with any visuals though. When I restarted, the problem was there.

I get the dots (one pixel tall, two wide. Exactly like Packrat but less dense) all the way across the top menu bar, even if I hide it. They occasionally flash away when I change the focus of windows or when some compiz effect goes over them.

[Addie MacGruer]

I got these as well - Hardy Heron, Q6600, Nvidia 8800GT, compiz; exactly like PackRat73's pattern. Caused by the choice of vga= line in my kernel parameters. Did sudo vim /boot/grub/menu.lst, changed my kernel line from:

kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-19-generic root=... ro quiet

to

kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-19-generic root=... ro quiet vga=773

They're all gone. They also disappear if you restart X with ctrl-alt-backslash, or if you change to a tty and back - ctrl-alt-F1 ctrl-alt-F7, say.

Addie.

[listdata]

I got these as well - Hardy Heron, Q6600, Nvidia 8800GT, compiz; exactly like PackRat73's pattern. Caused by the choice of vga= line in my kernel parameters. Did sudo vim /boot/grub/menu.lst, changed my kernel line from:

kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-19-generic root=... ro quiet

to

kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-19-generic root=... ro quiet vga=773

They're all gone. They also disappear if you restart X with ctrl-alt-backslash, or if you change to a tty and back - ctrl-alt-F1 ctrl-alt-F7, say.

Addie.

I had the same issue -- Nvidia 8800GTS on Xubuntu 8.04.1. Apparently it is not a Desktop issue only present on Gnome, since I had the same thing happen on my XFCE desktop. Just like you, it was because of the vga= option in /boot/grub/menu.lst's kernel options. (But unlike your situation, I had put in a vga= option where there was none before, so I could use TTY with a higher resolution than the default one).

I switched my vga= setting from a 24-bit one to an 8-bit one (same resolution), and now the dots are gone. (Get hwinfo, and do hwinfo --framebuffer to see your supported options and use a smaller bit option). To illustrate, here was my hwinfo --framebuffer output:

02: None 00.0: 11001 VESA Framebuffer                           
  [Created at bios.447]
  Unique ID: rdCR.FMoox01sR1A
  Hardware Class: framebuffer
  Model: "NVIDIA G80 Board - p356h00 "
  Vendor: "NVIDIA Corporation"
  Device: "G80 Board - p356h00 "
  SubVendor: "NVIDIA"
  SubDevice: 
  Revision: "Chip Rev"
  Memory Size: 14 MB
  Memory Range: 0xcb000000-0xcbdfffff (rw)
  Mode 0x0300: 640x400 (+640), 8 bits
  Mode 0x0301: 640x480 (+640), 8 bits
  Mode 0x0303: 800x600 (+800), 8 bits
  Mode 0x0305: 1024x768 (+1024), 8 bits
  Mode 0x0307: 1280x1024 (+1280), 8 bits
  Mode 0x030e: 320x200 (+640), 16 bits
  Mode 0x030f: 320x200 (+1280), 24 bits
  Mode 0x0311: 640x480 (+1280), 16 bits
  Mode 0x0312: 640x480 (+2560), 24 bits
  Mode 0x0314: 800x600 (+1600), 16 bits
  Mode 0x0315: 800x600 (+3200), 24 bits
  Mode 0x0317: 1024x768 (+2048), 16 bits
  Mode 0x0318: 1024x768 (+4096), 24 bits
  Mode 0x031a: 1280x1024 (+2560), 16 bits
  Mode 0x031b: 1280x1024 (+5120), 24 bits
  Mode 0x0330: 320x200 (+320), 8 bits
  Mode 0x0331: 320x400 (+320), 8 bits
  Mode 0x0332: 320x400 (+640), 16 bits
  Mode 0x0333: 320x400 (+1280), 24 bits
  Mode 0x0334: 320x240 (+320), 8 bits
  Mode 0x0335: 320x240 (+640), 16 bits
  Mode 0x0336: 320x240 (+1280), 24 bits
  Mode 0x033d: 640x400 (+1280), 16 bits
  Mode 0x033e: 640x400 (+2560), 24 bits
  Mode 0x0345: 1600x1200 (+1600), 8 bits
  Mode 0x0346: 1600x1200 (+3200), 16 bits
  Mode 0x0347: 1400x1050 (+1400), 8 bits
  Mode 0x0348: 1400x1050 (+2800), 16 bits
  Mode 0x0349: 1400x1050 (+5600), 24 bits
  Mode 0x034a: 1600x1200 (+6400), 24 bits
  Mode 0x0352: 2048x1536 (+8192), 24 bits
  Mode 0x0360: 1280x800 (+1280), 8 bits
  Mode 0x0361: 1280x800 (+5120), 24 bits
  Mode 0x0362: 768x480 (+768), 8 bits
  Mode 0x0364: 1440x900 (+1440), 8 bits
  Mode 0x0365: 1440x900 (+5760), 24 bits
  Mode 0x0368: 1680x1050 (+1680), 8 bits
  Mode 0x0369: 1680x1050 (+6720), 24 bits
  Mode 0x037c: 1920x1200 (+1920), 8 bits
  Mode 0x037d: 1920x1200 (+7680), 24 bits
  Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown

And then I changed my vga= from vga=0x0369 to vga=0x0368.

[donkihote]

it happened to me on Jaunty and my laptop Toshiba A215 ATI x1200, and <ctrl><alt> F1 then <ctrl><alt>F7 works to me. Thanks

[ruru]

Thanks for the tip. I had the same problem, and changing from the Human theme (to Clearlooks) seems to have gotten rid of the dots for me as well.

[ruru]

Actually - the dots just came back (under Clearlooks) - so I changed back to Human and logged in fresh - now they're gone. It seems as if just changing the window decorations resets something.
I have come across this problem before and it is very inconsistent (probably why the bug still exists).

[ruru]

I have noticed that simply logging out of the session and logging back in again cures the problem for me 100% of the time.

I have submitted a bug report about this: Bug 421048

[lesnoland]

i get the same error on 10.04, my problem was fglrx, i updated to latest version from ati, 10.5, and now the dots dissapeared.

[Tibb]

I had exactly the same problem constantly since several years with different Ubuntu versions and different nvidia drivers.

After adding agp=off to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT in the grub config the strange black dots problem is completely gone!

...maybe this helps someone too.

[oldos2er]

Old thread closed.