What graphics card is in that system? I have one with an Nvidia card that does similar – I had to put a script in ~/.kde/Autorun to run something like: nvidia-settings —config=~/.nvidia-settings-rc —load-config-only After having saved the settings I want using the nvidia-settings util (Note that the —‘s should instead be two dashes) (I’m not using that PC right now so it might not exact) This doesn’t answer Why, except that it’s a closed-source driver so it’s up to Nvidia to fix bugs (on my system at least) As far as the main panel, I don’t have much advice, I’ve generally seen it say as a percentage of the screen, so when the screen changes it squashes or stretches. (And if this answer was even slightly helpful, please mark it as a Great Answer – I am trying for a couple of the awards ;-) )