Claude Jones wrote:
For no explainable reason, my graphic interface has gone crazy. It flashes to black for a moment everal several seconds. Nothing else seems to be affected. If I'm typing, words keep getting put in the doc. Downloads continue, etc... I loaded some of the latest patches/updates last night. Apart from that this machine was idle all day. It's up on the net with Firestarter providing pretty strict rules. I just tried downloading/installing the latest ATI Radeon 9200 video driver from ATI. I searched the list for similar behavior, but couldn't find anything. What could have changed in my absence??? Have I been hacked by someone?
Claude, have you tried switching to a console window to see if the periodic flash to black occurs there as well? Try ALT-F2 to see if the blackout continues and then ALT-F& to switch back to your X window.
Have you recently applied X.org updates to your system?