too much work for irq17

[Bruce Bales]

I have been using kubuntu 8.04 since 2008 and upgrading fairly often.  About a 
month ago I tried to upgrade and the machine thrashed around a while then 
started sending the message "serial8250: too much work for irq17" then 
said "changing to low-graphics mode".  It became useless.  dmesg was full of
"serial8250: too much work for irq17"

Since support for 8.04 will end soon, I decided to install 10.04.  The install 
was slow and resulted in lots of "serial8250: too much work for irq17".  I 
got the same from installing 9.10 and 10.10.  I even tried ubuntu 10.04.

I reinstalled 8.04 and it seems to be allright, even after an apt-get update 
and upgrade.  

A google on "too much work for irq17" found several others with the same 
problem, mostly with Dell 2400 series computers (like mine).  But no 
solutions.

Support for 8.04 runs out soon and I sure don't want to have to leave kubuntu.

Sure would appreciate some help on this.
bruce