I ran Update Manager which showed 3 level 3 and one level 5 available. So I didn't load them.
I used the terminal commands:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
which did some updating and when I looked in Update Manager again there was nothing available. So presumably it has updated with non approved packages?
However on re-boot it is still in software rendering mode.

My roomate is running Linux Mint 17 Cinnamon and Linux Mint 17 KDE-

He told me that 'additional drivers' can be found in the "Software Manger"
Try looking in there.

TobiSGD:

This Arch WiKi suggest's adding the i915 to the modules in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf would that help?
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php...l_mode_setting

Would booting with KMS make the AIGLX issue's for OP stop?
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=120235

I don't see how adding the Intel driver to the initrd would help with a Radeon card. But even if you would add the radeon driver instead you would only get an earlier initialization of the card, but since the card is already correctly initialized (at least according to the logs) this won't help here.
KMS is enabled by default on any modern distro. Disabling KMS could indeed cause a behavior like we can see here, but unless the OP added the relvant options to the kernel commandline in the bootloader configuration it should be enabled already.

Brian4882:

Are you still in rendering mode?

Yancek mentioned additional drivers in post #5 and I did as well in the "Software Center"

Have you tried that?

Maybe give Lubuntu a try it's a light weight distro. It might play nicer with the rendering issue:-
http://lubuntu.net/

Yes, I am still in software rendering mode and I have tried to find suitable drivers or programs in 'Software Center'.
I can't find Control Center in Mint17. There is Administration/Device Drivers which brings up a Driver Manager window but that is blank and the buttons are grayed, just a message at the bottom 'No proprietary drivers are in use'.
I have contacted officialdriversdownload who are looking into it.

OK, let's see what they say:-

I looked on my friends Linux Mint 17 system and there isn't a Control Center.

Evidently your not alone. I found that this rendering problems has been an issue for a handful of people.
On page 2 of this thread a LM Member says he found a solution for Intel Graphics.
(I'm not sure if it will fix your issue)

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopi...t=134713&f=208

I know I mentioned this in another thread but old AMD/ATI chipsets have long been abandoned and the open source Radeon driver is all there is...

That's a shame-

Would fall back mode help any?

I understand not wanting to run in fallback mode but while in fallback mode was the machine running better? I would reinstall fglrx & work on fixing it, as then the driver is loaded.

1 members found this post helpful.

I don't know how often it has to be mentioned in this thread, but there is no fglrx for this card, since this card is not supported anymore by AMD.

Perhaps this will make it clearer. Scroll to the bottom of the page and you will see the card in question.

http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Hardware

Here's the quote: