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donaastor

Member

Registered: 2022-03-14

Posts: 72

[SOLVED] RX 6650 XT is flickering

I just want to check what is known about this issue and whether there are any solutions to it.

So, I have just connected my new GPU, Sapphire NITRO+ RX 6650 XT (I am saying the brand because it is maybe overclocked), and I have changed nothing from my settings. Before this card, I used some XFX RX 570 and mesa + xf86-video-amdgpu drivers. The new card likes to flicker roughly once in every few minutes. I changed the drivers to experimental meta-git and xf86-video-amdgpu-git, but it didn't change anything much. Then on my corectrl window, I bounded the maximal frequency to 2.4Ghz for GPU and 1Ghz for the memory. Again, it didn't change anything much. I adjusted how my GPU is seated on the mobo, and that kinda improved the things, but the flickering is still there sometimes.
I haven't checked if the same thing is happening in the BIOS, the mobo is MSI MAG B550 Tomahawk.

EDIT: To save you from scrolling to the bottom, here is the solution:

NOTE: I am still unsure how to let it apply on every boot, nor how to adjust my fan speed after every suspention to RAM... But that is another issue.

The problem is aggressive power-saving which lowers power state of VRAM too often, too low. Firstly, add `amdgpu.ppfeaturemask=0xffffffff` and `amdgpu.dcdebugmask=0x10` to kernel parameters. Now execute:

WARNING: This might damage your GPU, consult yourself on https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/AMDGPU#Overclocking

# cd /sys/class/drm/card0/device
# cat pp_dpm_mclk

Now read the available states. Mine are 4:

0: 96Mhz
1: 541Mhz *
2: 675Mhz
3: 1094Mhz

The star indicates the current state. Before, it was 0 most of the time and that is when the flickering was happening. To forbid it to go that low to level 0, echo the allowed states to pp_dpm_mclk. Since I don't allow only 0, I am allowing 1,2 and 3, hence "1 2 3":

# echo "manual" > power_dpm_force_performance_level
# echo "1 2 3" > pp_dpm_mclk

Last edited by donaastor (2022-09-03 18:23:33)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 23,196

Re: [SOLVED] RX 6650 XT is flickering

Test behaviour with the modesetting driver by removing xf86-video-amdgpu

Last edited by V1del (2022-08-30 21:23:04)

donaastor

Member

Registered: 2022-03-14

Posts: 72

Re: [SOLVED] RX 6650 XT is flickering

Test behaviour with the modesetting driver by removing xf86-video-amdgpu

Thank you for answering. I don't fully understand what "modesetting driver" means, but are you essentially asking me to uninstall (pacman -R) the amdgpu driver and see if the flickering persists?

Ok, so I did run

# pacman -R package xf86-video-amdgpu-git

and the output of "lspci -v" lists amdgpu under VGA... Maybe that means something didn't work, I don't know. So I do have this program called CoreCtrl which has something to say about amdgpu here: https://gitlab.com/corectrl/corectrl/-/wikis/Setup at the bottom of the page.

I have also update the drivers of my motherboard and immediately removed amdgpu, so I don't know what fixed the flickering, but there is no flickering anymore!

Last edited by donaastor (2022-08-31 00:43:36)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 23,196

Re: [SOLVED] RX 6650 XT is flickering

no that lspci output still mentions amdgpu is normal that refers to the kernel driver which is expected and should remain. What you removed is the Xorg 2D operation driver, these used to be necessary but since a few years xorg has a built in method that utilizes generic OpenGL and kernel support and can often be a good way to avoid issues in the "more specialized" 2D drivers.

If you consider the issue solved, please mark it as such by prepending [SOLVED] or so to the title.

donaastor

Member

Registered: 2022-03-14

Posts: 72

Re: [SOLVED] RX 6650 XT is flickering

no that lspci output still mentions amdgpu is normal that refers to the kernel driver which is expected and should remain. What you removed is the Xorg 2D operation driver, these used to be necessary but since a few years xorg has a built in method that utilizes generic OpenGL and kernel support and can often be a good way to avoid issues in the "more specialized" 2D drivers.

Ok I understand now. I installed the amdgpu back because I noticed that my browser stuttered, just to see if it was really the BIOS.

If you consider the issue solved, please mark it as such by prepending [SOLVED] or so to the title.

I know, I will. I just wanna test out a little more so that I can at least be sure in what was causing this flickering, BIOS or amdgpu.

EDIT: With amdgpu installed agian, the flickering came back, after a suspention to RAM. I guess you solved the problem, but 2D graphics are much less smooth now... So I won't mark this as solved yet because I want to know if I am the only one experiencing this and if yes then the problem is in something else.

Last edited by donaastor (2022-08-31 01:53:08)

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 58,698

Re: [SOLVED] RX 6650 XT is flickering

What are "2D graphics" and how are they "less smooth" than the flickering?

Edit: try https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 3#p2054723 and maybe this should also go into the wiki

Last edited by seth (2022-08-31 07:20:16)

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donaastor

Member

Registered: 2022-03-14

Posts: 72

Re: [SOLVED] RX 6650 XT is flickering

What are "2D graphics" and how are they "less smooth" than the flickering?

Sorry, I wasn't very clear.
When I say my screen is flickering I mean that every few minutes I see few flashing frames, all white or all black (I can't tell) and between those one color flashes, I can notice some artifacts like my picture being shifted a little or something.
With 2D graphics I was refering to scrolling websites on my chromium for example. Without amdgpu I can see some little stuttering (not tearing) as if some frames are being dropped and replaced with the previous one. With amdgpu it looked smoother. Also, without amdgpu often a video on youtube would freeze completely (not the audio) until I pause and play agian or something...

Thank you for your suggestion, I will try it today!

Last edited by donaastor (2022-08-31 14:34:57)

donaastor

Member

Registered: 2022-03-14

Posts: 72

Re: [SOLVED] RX 6650 XT is flickering

try https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 3#p2054723 and maybe this should also go into the wiki

Nope. Still the same unfortunately. But I've noticed something!

After a reboot, it works fine, but after a suspend it flickers again.
Before the suspend I noticed that in corectrl my memory frequency is constant 1000Mhz whenever I am playing a youtube video. After the suspend, the frequency circled around 500 or 600 Mhz, while playing a video. Clearly, there was some change in power behavior at the suspention.

I am starting to think this is a corectrl issue since I had to give that software the full control over my GPU and this GPU isn't even recognized by the software I will try to find a substitute for corectrl

reed1

Member

Registered: 2011-01-14

Posts: 29

Re: [SOLVED] RX 6650 XT is flickering

@donaastor holy sheet your solution works perfectly for me. My Rx 6600 had given me so much headache, then I found this. I'll have to write some script to modify power_dpm_force_performance_level back to "auto" and set allowed freq to 1 2 3 4 again whenever the computer is on idle, I think it will be good addition. Thanks again for your findings !