How to resolve display errors Toshiba L875?

Question

I have a Toshiba L875, AMD, with Radeon graphics card. Win8 was pre-installed. There are two problems but I believe one underlying cause.

Problem: the first is that the display has random gray artifacts. Grey boxes or what look like grey shards of broken glass, randomly appear on screen. Triggering a refresh (resize or move a window) usually removes the artifacts, though they reappear.

How I've tried to fix it:

1. Have verified that open source Radeon drivers are in use (Settings > Software & Updates > Additional drivers)
2. Have added proprietary ATI drivers (same as above)
3. Have added ATI catalyst center
4. Added latest kernel, 3.10
5. Installed various distros: Mint, Ubuntu 13.04, 12.04 LTS, Lubuntu, all Ubuntu derivatives
6. Removed compiz. That was a mistake :)

Each of these attempts are separate, not cumulative.

Adding/changing drivers either had no effect on the problem or, in the case of the proprietary drivers, I had to reinstall Ubuntu, as a reboot ended with a black screen and blinking white cursor that accepted no commands.

I attempted to remove/change compiz because most Ubuntu reported errors listed /usr/bin/compiz as the location.

Problem 2: Oh, and my ultimate goal is to get dual monitors working. Any attempts to plug-in a VGA monitor blank the laptop monitor or freeze it.

Currently: my attempts are more whack-a-mole than systematic and probably incorrect in some way, but I am not sure what else to do: it seems a video problem.

A fresh install awaits at home, so the default video drivers and kernel are no longer in-play.

However, I believe what fixes one problem will fix the other.

I've learned a lot over the 25 or so hours spent researching and trying to resolve the video problem, but I need it to work now. Before I jumped, I used a VM for about a month and set-up a Bitnami WordPress stack as a very good OneNote replacement. So, I checked workflow. And, I could be wrong, but was sure dual monitors worked when I ran the LiveDVD to test for hardware support. Anyway, like the Ham & Egg breakfast story that explains the difference between involved and committed (the chicken is involved, the pig committed), I removed Win 8 and went all-in. So, I am committed.

Thanks for any support, I appreciate the time of those in the forum.

Answer 1

I presume you already checked if the card works with windows?

If you are really unable to use the proprietary driver, you could try the new open source driver in Linux 3.11. The easiest way would probably be to just install the Ubuntu 13.10 daily image, which includes this kernel.

Answer 2

[resolved] I'm going to mark this resolved but unfixed. Lots of research suggests the driver is too new. For future travelers, i can leave a little bit of info that may help shorten the curve.

Ubuntu 13.04 on an earlier model Toshiba, L675D-s7046, worked with dual monitors.

The L875D laptop was purchased in May 2013 and I believe the ATI drivers too new for Open source drivers to have yet been developed. Why proprietary drivers did not work, is still unclear.

Several other posts in this site suggest the same situation. This will be one more that confirms that L875 Satellite Open source and proprietary video drivers, do not work in ubuntu 13.04 and 13.10, both 64-bit.