xorg 100% cpu usage

For the last few days my laptop had become unusably slow. Top would show xorg at 100% cpu usage and desktop responsiveness sucked. This on a dual core with intel 945gme graphics. I tried disabling compiz, etc to no avail.

Until I found bug report #430694, which provided the simple workaround: create a file /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf with the following line in it:

options i915 modeset=1

For me this solved the issue… To try this out once, hit ctrl+alt+f1, login, and type:

sudo service gdm stop
sudo rmmod i915
sudo modprobe i915 modeset=1
sudo service gdm start

~ by azimout on October 6, 2009.