Menu and panel text corrupted with fglrx ATI driver

[jchang504]

Yesterday I installed Linux Mint 17 alongside my Windows 7 on my HP Pavilion g4-1215dx. Specs (from "inxi -Fxz"):

Code: Select all

System:    Host: GreenDragon Kernel: 3.13.0-24-generic x86_64 (64 bit, gcc: 4.8.2) 
           Desktop: Gnome Distro: Linux Mint 17 Qiana
Machine:   System: Hewlett-Packard product: HP Pavilion g4 Notebook PC version: 0691120000204610000620100
           Mobo: Hewlett-Packard model: 3564 version: 21.46 Bios: Insyde version: F.6A date: 05/13/2013
CPU:       Dual core AMD A4-3300M APU with Radeon HD Graphics (-MCP-) cache: 2048 KB flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4a svm) bmips: 7586.68 
           Clock Speeds: 1: 800.00 MHz 2: 1400.00 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Sumo [Radeon HD 6480G] bus-ID: 00:01.0 
           X.Org: 1.15.1 drivers: ati,fglrx (unloaded: fbdev,vesa,radeon) Resolution: 1366x768@60.0hz 
           GLX Renderer: AMD Radeon HD 6480G GLX Version: 4.3.12798 - CPC 13.35.1005 Direct Rendering: Yes

I was having what appears to be a common issue from my Googling; my screen wouldn't turn on after resuming from a suspend. After trying a few other things I switched to using fglrx in Driver Manager. This fixed the problem with resuming from both suspend and hibernate, which I was very happy about.

However, it seems to have caused a new problem which is much less problematic, but still a bit annoying. The text in my menu and panel(? is this the correct name? It's what I would refer to as the Desktop Toolbar, being used to Windows) is messed up; some of the characters are replaced with rectangles that are the same height and width as the characters would be. I can't seem to take a screenshot with the menu open to illustrate, but basically that's it - some characters are displaying as rectangles instead of what they should be. It's not all of the characters, only about half (and particular ones; e.g. all lowercase e's and all uppercase D's are among them). As far as I can tell, the Menu and Panel are the only places affected.

It seems strange that this would be a graphics card problem, but it only appeared after switching to fglrx so it must be related somehow. I will happily post further information if needed, but please give explanations of any commands you want me to run (even if it's just for more information) because I am new to Linux and don't like running commands suggested by forum users without knowing what they do and why I'm running them (especially ones needing sudo).

Thanks all for any help and advice you can offer.

[jchang504]

[UPDATE:] Upon booting this morning, the text corruption problem was gone. However, I had new strange behavior: I closed the laptop lid to test the suspend. It suspended successfully, and resumed but then the screen was frozen on the lock screen with no login box. Unresponsive to caps lock button, ctrl+alt+f1, etc. I had to hard reboot. Upon rebooting and logging in, my Menu refused to open (when I clicked it it stayed open for a split second but then closed. Did not respond to the Windows button which normally opens the menu for me). I then tried pressing ctrl+alt+del (although I honestly don't know what this does in Linux; could anyone explain? It was suggested in some of the other posts I read when dealing with my initial problem described in my post above). This restored the menu to normal. I tried closing the lid again, and suspend now seems to work. So I guess everything is okay now, although the system seems rather volatile. Does anyone have any idea if there's a problem related to the drivers (or not) that I should worry about here? Anything I should do to prevent these bugs from reappearing?

[jchang504]

[UPDATE:] I just tried closing the laptop lid to suspend and opening to resume. The resume went fine, but now the text corruption of the menu is back (different characters are corrupted this time). I also noticed that the "Show Desktop" icon is messed up. So it seems the problem only occurs after suspending and resuming, and the text is fine right after a boot. Any advice?

[jchang504]

[UPDATE:] After another reboot, the text corruption is gone, even after suspending and resuming. Seems to be on and off fairly randomly. As long as it stays away, I'm happy, but if anyone has any explanation or solution for this, I would love to hear it.