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#1 2017-08-13 12:55:10

lquidfire
Member
From: South Africa
Registered: 2017-07-26
Posts: 53

[SOLVED] Flickering screen AMD RX 470

P.S.: Solved probably by reseating the GPU and RAM. Symptoms disappeared after that. See post #8 in this thread.




The problem: At random times my screen flickers (goes entirely black).

With 'flickers' I mean: the screen turns black for about a second. At times it flickers once, at other times it flickers many times in a row, or sometimes so much so that the screen remains black. An example is, for some curious reason, the forums over at Phoronix. Flickers a lot. Yet, when I take a screenshot while the screen is black, the screenshot shows me the website. Btw, when I make the screenshot full-screen, the monitor flickers again. Flickering also occurs during watching of movies in VLC.

I am looking forward to finding out if this is a problem of the cable, monitor, GPU, driver or something else. I don't know where to start and hope that you can push me in the right direction to figure this one out. Am looking forward to learning more about what's going on in the computer smile

What I have tried:

  • Google - I found so many threads about flickering screens, and I also searched the different things that dmesg spits out and that I thought would be errors. Suggestions go from try a different hdmi cable, or use DP instead, to using different Linux distributions, trying newest git-kernel (in such posts usually around 4.4).. I don't have any spare cables or parts lying around, and a different Linux distribution doesn't help: same flickering under Ubuntu (with amdgpu as well as amdgpu-pro).

  • Searched the forums here - found a chunk of info on using mesa-git, llvn-git and what not. Don't know if that could bring the solution. Please advice, if relevant, if I must use just one mesa-git, or several git-sources because otherwise the system would break. I'd like to learn smile

  • Update drivers e.a. hesitant to install something from git cuz I might break things. See above. Happy to learn.

  • Tried different frequency settings via xrandr. Lower frequency resulted in a bit less flickering at first, but didn't take away the problem.

I have Arch + GNOME installed and updated.
GPU: Gigabyte RX470 G1 Gaming
Monitor: Dell SE2416H (connected via HDMI)

I am now adding some output that I think might be relevant, but please ask for info where needed.


uname -a
Linux #hostname 4.12.5-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Aug 11 12:40:21 CEST 2017 x86_64 GNU/Linux
sudo lspci | grep VGA
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Ellesmere [Radeon RX 470/480/570/580] (rev cf)
sudo find /sys |grep drivers.*01:00
/sys/bus/pci/drivers/snd_hda_intel/0000:01:00.1
/sys/bus/pci/drivers/amdgpu/0000:01:00.0

From sudo pacman -Qs xorg-server

local/xorg-server-common 1.19.3-2 (xorg)
local/xorg-server-xwayland 1.19.3-2 (xorg)
sudo pacman -Qs amdgpu
local/xf86-video-amdgpu 1.3.0-2 (xorg-drivers)
    X.org amdgpu video driver
sudo pacman -Qs llvm
local/clang 4.0.1-5
    C language family frontend for LLVM
local/llvm 4.0.1-5
    Low Level Virtual Machine
local/llvm-libs 4.0.1-5
    Low Level Virtual Machine (runtime libraries)
sudo pacman -Qs mesa
local/glu 9.0.0-4
    Mesa OpenGL Utility library
local/libtxc_dxtn 1.0.1-6
    S3 Texture Compression (S3TC) library for Mesa
local/mesa 17.1.6-1
    an open-source implementation of the OpenGL specification
local/mesa-demos 8.3.0-3
    Mesa demos and tools
local/mesa-vdpau 17.1.6-1
    Mesa VDPAU drivers
xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1920 x 1080, maximum 16384 x 16384
DisplayPort-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DisplayPort-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DisplayPort-2 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI-A-0 connected primary 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 527mm x 296mm
   1920x1080     60.00*+  50.00    59.94  
   1920x1080i    60.00    50.00    59.94  
   1600x900      60.00  
   1280x1024     75.02    60.02  
   1152x864      75.00  
   1280x720      60.00    50.00    59.94  
   1024x768      75.03    60.00  
   800x600       75.00    60.32  
   720x576       50.00  
   720x576i      50.00  
   720x480       60.00    59.94  
   720x480i      60.00    59.94  
   640x480       75.00    60.00    59.94  
   720x400       70.08  
DVI-D-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

dmesg: https://ptpb.pw/YSbY

Thank you for your help.


Edit: Changed pastebin url
Edit2: Changed to Solved and added explanation at the start of this post

Last edited by lquidfire (2017-08-18 10:22:41)

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#2 2017-08-13 14:13:53

Lone_Wolf
Member
From: Netherlands, Europe
Registered: 2005-10-04
Posts: 11,868

Re: [SOLVED] Flickering screen AMD RX 470

From sudo pacman -Qs xorg-server

All pacman Query options work for normal users, no need to use sudo for those.

smpboot: CPU0: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6500 CPU @ 3.20GHz (family: 0x6, model: 0x5e, stepping: 0x3)

That processor usually comes with an  Intel® HD Graphics 530 .

Please post lspci -k and xorg log.


Disliking systemd intensely, but not satisfied with alternatives so focusing on taming systemd.


(A works at time B)  && (time C > time B ) ≠  (A works at time C)

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#3 2017-08-13 14:22:51

lquidfire
Member
From: South Africa
Registered: 2017-07-26
Posts: 53

Re: [SOLVED] Flickering screen AMD RX 470

Lone_Wolf wrote:

All pacman Query options work for normal users, no need to use sudo for those.

Thanks!

Output lspci -k: https://ptpb.pw/6lhU

Output xorg.log: https://ptpb.pw/Y26V

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#4 2017-08-13 14:40:22

Lone_Wolf
Member
From: Netherlands, Europe
Registered: 2005-10-04
Posts: 11,868

Re: [SOLVED] Flickering screen AMD RX 470

No sign of an intel integrated (disabled or it was never present) so this is not a hybrid graphics system.

Dmesg showed several errors and you are using HDMI.
I suggest you try one of the kernels with the AMD display code that is not yet part of the kernel .

Aur has linux-amd-mainline-git and linux-amd-staging-git or you can use linux-amd-staging from Lordheavy mesa-git repo.
The Unofficial user repositories wiki page has details for LH repo.


Disliking systemd intensely, but not satisfied with alternatives so focusing on taming systemd.


(A works at time B)  && (time C > time B ) ≠  (A works at time C)

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#5 2017-08-13 15:07:21

lquidfire
Member
From: South Africa
Registered: 2017-07-26
Posts: 53

Re: [SOLVED] Flickering screen AMD RX 470

Thanks, will look at LH's git. How is it different from the git you maintain?

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#6 2017-08-13 15:20:26

Lone_Wolf
Member
From: Netherlands, Europe
Registered: 2005-10-04
Posts: 11,868

Re: [SOLVED] Flickering screen AMD RX 470

Keep in mind I focus on maintaining mesa-git (kerberizer maintains aur llvm-svn ) , and lordheavy has added things besides mesa-git & llvm-svn .

In the first post of mesa-git - latest videodrivers & issues i tried to clarify the difference.


Disliking systemd intensely, but not satisfied with alternatives so focusing on taming systemd.


(A works at time B)  && (time C > time B ) ≠  (A works at time C)

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#7 2017-08-13 18:52:47

lquidfire
Member
From: South Africa
Registered: 2017-07-26
Posts: 53

Re: [SOLVED] Flickering screen AMD RX 470

Back, running amd-staging from LH.

uname -r
4.12.0-1-amd-staging

Everything seems to be working, will have to update in a bit if there is still flickering going on.

I meanwhile borrowed an HDMI cable and changed that as well.

Here's a new output of dmesg: https://ptpb.pw/DpvW

From a quick glance at things I see more info for HDMI now (mentions monitor model and all kinds of stuff), yet the error messages seem to still be there (e.g. powerplay).


Edt: added uname -r output

Last edited by lquidfire (2017-08-13 18:53:33)

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#8 2017-08-18 10:20:34

lquidfire
Member
From: South Africa
Registered: 2017-07-26
Posts: 53

Re: [SOLVED] Flickering screen AMD RX 470

Okay, there is much less flickering now.

I ended up going back to step one: checking the hardware.

I opened the case and reseated the RAM and GPU. I will mark this as the way of solving the problem, as I can boot into the stock kernel and not have flickering as well.

After that, I haven't seen flickering anymore, but my wife reported one flicker (screen off and on) a few minutes ago.

Will have a look at how this evolves, but will mark it as solved for the moment as much of the first symptoms are gone.

Last edited by lquidfire (2017-08-18 10:23:26)

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