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raindev

Member

From: Europe

Registered: 2016-07-27

Posts: 8

Website

[Solved] Screen artifacts, Intel Coffee Lake iGPU, XPS 13 9380

Hi everyone,

Here's a list of sample artifacts:
sample 1
sample 2
sample 3

The hardware:
Dell XPS 13 9380 (1080p version)
Intel i7-8565U (Coffee Lake), Intel UHD Graphics 620

linux 5.5.8-arch1-1
linux-lts 5.4.24-1
gnome-session 3.34.2-1
gdm 3.34.1-2

I'm experiencing the issue with Linux 5.x. Up until now LTS kernel and Xorg sessions worked relatively smoothly. I was hoping that the issues would be resolved with time and stayed on LTS kernel. After linux-lts has been updated to 5.x that's no longer an option. In addition to the artifacts I also experience hangs with Xorg session (quite a few people seem to be having issues with hangs and Intel GPU judging from forums, e.g. this post).

Intel driver related kernel logs:

$ dmesg | grep i915
[    1.439984] i915 0000:00:02.0: vgaarb: deactivate vga console
[    1.441574] i915 0000:00:02.0: vgaarb: changed VGA decodes: olddecodes=io+mem,decodes=io+mem:owns=io+mem
[    1.442087] [drm] Finished loading DMC firmware i915/kbl_dmc_ver1_04.bin (v1.4)
[    1.463934] [drm] Initialized i915 1.6.0 20191101 for 0000:00:02.0 on minor 0
[    1.469427] fbcon: i915drmfb (fb0) is primary device
[    2.592448] i915 0000:00:02.0: fb0: i915drmfb frame buffer device
[   25.416185] snd_hda_intel 0000:00:1f.3: bound 0000:00:02.0 (ops i915_audio_component_bind_ops [i915])
[ 1660.064560] [drm:intel_cpu_fifo_underrun_irq_handler [i915]] *ERROR* CPU pipe A FIFO underrun

I don't think there are logs that correlate with the events of screen artifacts appearing. Screen artifacts are more likely to appear if there are applications actively using GPU (e.g. during a video call in a browser). Let me know if any other logs would be useful.

I have tried without luck wiki troubleshooting recommendations, specifically:
- disabling vertical synchronization
- enabling TearFree driver option
- changing acceleration method to UXA
- switching to DRI2

Xorg sessions seem to be more affected (sample 1) and frequently coincide with hangs. Wayland sessions (sample 2 and 3) usually continues working even when distortion appear.

I would greatly appreciate any help.
Please let me know if this is something that simply has to be reported to the upstream of the Intel driver as a bug or if you think this might be a hardware issue.

Last edited by raindev (2020-03-12 06:32:38)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,728

Re: [Solved] Screen artifacts, Intel Coffee Lake iGPU, XPS 13 9380

Most of these symptoms (at least on xorg) are tied to xf86-video-intel and it's lack of proper support for newer chips. My suggestion in these cases is to remove xf86-video-intel (and configuration files you've created for it) and just use the xorg built-in modesetting driver. It tends to work better.

However looking at these samples, I don't think I know many cases with that kind of corruption (and xf86-video-intel should be irrelevant on wayland). Something you could try here is

i915.enable_psr=0

and/or

i915.enable_fbc=0

on your kernel parameters.

raindev

Member

From: Europe

Registered: 2016-07-27

Posts: 8

Website

Re: [Solved] Screen artifacts, Intel Coffee Lake iGPU, XPS 13 9380

Thanks a lot for your answer V1del!
You're indeed correct that I had xf86-video-intel installed. Removing it has definitely improved the situation: before it I couldn't use an Xorg sessions with the latest kernel for a few minutes without having glitches and the system hanging. This morning I have used an Xorg and a Wayland session for a bit and didn't observe any screen artifacts. I'll use the laptop for some more time to figure out if it was the only problem, if not I'll try disabling Panel Self Refresh and framebuffer compression. In either case I'll update the thread.

Last edited by raindev (2020-03-09 11:34:49)

raindev

Member

From: Europe

Registered: 2016-07-27

Posts: 8

Website

Re: [Solved] Screen artifacts, Intel Coffee Lake iGPU, XPS 13 9380

I have used the laptop with Panel Self Refresh disabled (i915.enable_psr=0) for a couple of days and haven't observed any glitches during this time.