Description:

Since the upgrade to xorg-server 1.17.2-4 (from 1.17.2-3), I have lots of problems with the graphics on my Lenovo x240. On certain applications (e.g., vbox, spotify, skype, speedcrunch), the following problems occurs sporadically:
* graphics not displayed properly (e.g., text written over other text)
* graphics elements flickered
* could not go into fullscreen mode for the window
* vbox showed a large black rectangle in the centre of the screen that never got updated when switching between virtual desktops

This was the procedure to isolate the problem:
* tried different kernels (LTS and latest)
* tried different window managers (i3 and awesome)
* tried a fresh user account
* tried different version of xf86-intel driver
* tried SNA and uxa acceleration

I rolled back with ARM and tried every day in July until the problem occurred. Then I set pacman to ignore xorg-server and xorg-server-common and updated everything.

The system is now working again, except that I still run xorg-server 1.17.2-3.

Additional info:

It's a standard Lenovo x240 laptop.

lspci for the graphics card:

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Haswell-ULT Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 09) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Subsystem: Lenovo ThinkPad X240
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 47
Memory at e0000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
Memory at c0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=512M]
I/O ports at 3000 [size=64]
Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: i915
Kernel modules: i915


now running linux 4.1.2-2 with everything updated (also the xf86-intel driver) to July 25, 2015.



Steps to reproduce:
* use i3wm (similar problems in awesome, see above for details on tried approaches)
* open spotify
* press <windows>-f to maximize the screen

or

* open vbox
* start a VM
* go to fullscreen mode from the menu