Ubuntu – UBUNTU 14.04 Gui text and pictures displaying problem like a virus

guiintel graphics

I might have a problem with Ubuntu 14.04 with a brand new laptop Lenovo T450s – it looks like a virus.
It appeared after the laptop had to be restarted and I hope it is just some corrupted file.

Anti-virus did not find anything.

So it looks like some letters are replaced with random new letters or they're just missing. It appears with different intensity after restart, but does not disappear.
It affects the GUI and also Firefox, synaptic and other programs, but not all. Skype is fine, terminal is fine. It appears even under the guest session.

Is it a virus? If yes which anti-virus for Ubuntu can find it and if not how to fix it?

Here is the screenshot:

enter image description here

olga@olga:~$ sudo lshw -class display
[sudo] password for olga: 
  *-display               
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: Broadwell-U Integrated Graphics
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 2
       bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
       version: 09
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=i915 latency=0
       resources: irq:61 memory:e0000000-e0ffffff memory:d0000000-dfffffff ioport:3000(size=64)

Best Answer

This being caused by a virus is very unlikely.

I have the same problem, also Ubuntu 14.04 on Thinkpad T450s, and the following workaround that someone suggested on Launchpad works for me, although it has a noticeable negative impact on graphics performance:

sudo mkdir /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/
sudo -H gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-intel.conf

Add the following to the file, save it and reboot:

Section "Device"
  Identifier  "Intel Graphics"
  Driver      "intel"
  Option      "AccelMethod"  "uxa"
EndSection
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