Update — I could be wrong, but it seems like disabling 3D acceleration may have done for the weird behavior. No more missing text, no more blacking out chunks of the screen. Probably a shoddy 3d processor packaged with this machine. 
Update — I could be wrong, but it seems like disabling 3D acceleration may have done for the weird behavior. No more missing text, no more blacking out chunks of the screen. Probably a shoddy 3d processor packaged with this machine.