With the screen in console mode (i.e. text-only, no X), I get scattered lines of pixels across approximately half the screen's width. When first started, there will typically be 6-7, with more showing up the more text is displayed on the screen. (And to some degree, the longer that the text that is there is displayed.) The lines are not solid, but there are enough pixels involved to make them easily visible (Enough horizontally. The lines are always 1 pixel tall). Colors seem to be random, although one instance where the same line was getting updated over and over seemed to create an "echo" from about 2 to 7 lines above it (scattered throughout that range) seem to be forming what looked somewhat like an interference pattern. (In other words, the coloring of the pixels was not completely random.) Since I compiled the kernel myself (naturally), there is a distinct possibility that I screwed something up in the kernel config, although I haven't been able to find anything. If this is a known screw-up in kernel configuration, my apologies, and I abjectly beg that you tell me fix anyway. <g> Of possible relevance is that I could not change the video mode. It came up in 1024x768 VESA, which normally would be desirable. I tried changing it (kernel option "vga=ask") and specified 80x25, but I got the exact same screen. Hardware is a Dell Latitude CP MX233. (233 MHz Pentium w/MMX), 128 Megs of RAM, and about 3 Gigs of hard drive space on a 20 gig drive. I have several other distributions of Linux on the drive, and none of the others have this problem, so I'm fairly sure it's not hardware.
OK, sounds like your laptop isn't 100% VESA compatible. Try disabling framebuffer console and just use standard text-based console support. That will fix it.
