New System Problem

[Young]

Brian McKee wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 13, 2008 at 11:08 PM, Young <tuxman at knology.net> wrote:
>> I just built a new system and installed Ubuntu 8.04.01-alternate-amd64.
>>
>> The system boots into a fractured graphics image with the Ubuntu logo
>> repeating 5 times across the screen. Each repeat is just horizontal
>> lines like a bad version of the AT&T globe logo. There's also a lot of
>> garbage on the screen, and no evidence of a cursor pointer.
> 
> That sounds like the usplash image.   Did you leave it long enough to
> complete booting?  It's possible only the usplash is an issue, and
> it's OK once gdm starts.   You could also hit escape at the GRUB
> prompt and edit the boot to remove the 'quiet' options and/or put it
> in plain text mode until X starts.
> 
> Brian
> 
Brian,

I did leave it on long enough to allow it to complete booting.

I just rebooted. I forgot to mention that the initial splash, the one 
with the logo..Ubuntu with the orange progress bar underneath looks 
fine, then it goes to the next screen which is hosed. It has the 5 
fractured logos, but now the bottom of the screen has a portion of the 
default desktop background which is completely legible.

As a test, I just powered down the system and then brought it back up 
(instead of using the restart switch) and this time it's back to the 
white pattern at the bottom of the screen that it had before. I'm 
guessing this is the content of video memory on power-up, which implies 
that video memory isn't being addressed correctly.

Mark