Screen flickring/blinking on intel 4000 card with dual monitors

mmarif4u · 2014-06-30 00:21:59

Hi community,

I have Samsung series 9 laptop with Intel 4000 card on board. I have two 23" monitors attached to this laptop via hdmi and vga. I have this weird screen flicker issue even on one monitor attached to the laptop.
Tried some tips like i915.powersave=0 on boot load. But seems nothing is working atm. It is not that bad, but very annoying at times specially for eyes.

$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor DRAM Controller (rev 09)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller (rev 09)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev c4)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 4 (rev c4)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 5 (rev c4)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation HM75 Express Chipset LPC Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series Chipset Family 6-port SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 04)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller (rev 04)
01:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Centrino Advanced-N 6235 (rev 24)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 06)
03:00.0 USB controller: Renesas Technology Corp. uPD720202 USB 3.0 Host Controller (rev 02)

Any hints for further investigation.
For the record: before having this 2nd monitor i had to turn off the laptop screen off and use only one screen(the 1st monitor). Using one screen at a time does not have any flickers.
It can happen any time and on any screen not restricted to browsers, flash, scrolling etc.

Gnome 3.12.x here.

Thanks

Last edited by mmarif4u (2014-06-30 00:23:20)

nonamefantasy · 2014-06-30 02:28:01

You should try it with a non composite manager window manager like fluxbox. It may be because it is related to the 3d acceleration.

What it gives?

dmesg | grep drm

mmarif4u · 2014-06-30 02:47:06

That's what i am thinking of. As of further reading about this issue i came across to disable the composites and try it. Seems that's the issue here(just a guess).
I am away now, will post the results of the command and will have further tests.

Thanks nonamefantasy for the heads up.

nonamefantasy · 2014-06-30 08:47:20

I am having now maybe the same issue, but just with games (xonotic-glx) with HD 3000. What I just got recently (the problem). And about reading it it seems that it is opengl or composit or what realated. dmesg is giving me

[   13.873741] [drm] Wrong MCH_SSKPD value: 0x16040307
[   13.873744] [drm] This can cause pipe underruns and display issues.
[   13.873745] [drm] Please upgrade your BIOS to fix this.

I think it can be related. But not sure. I am curious about what is MCH_SSKPD.

Xonotic-glx is running fine. Athough I porbably will upgrade my bios just to see if it will solve the problem or not.

When I was getting this flickering problem last time in a week maybe I downgraded back my intel driver and it was working again correctly

Your welcome!

Last edited by nonamefantasy (2014-06-30 08:48:40)

mmarif4u · 2014-06-30 14:40:48

Output for drm:

$ dmesg | grep drm
[    1.823113] [drm] Initialized drm 1.1.0 20060810
[    1.925602] [drm] Memory usable by graphics device = 2048M
[    1.925608] fb: switching to inteldrmfb from VESA VGA
[    1.975297] [drm] Supports vblank timestamp caching Rev 2 (21.10.2013).
[    1.975299] [drm] Driver supports precise vblank timestamp query.
[    2.117233] fbcon: inteldrmfb (fb0) is primary device
[    3.360171] [drm] Enabling RC6 states: RC6 on, RC6p on, RC6pp off
[    3.647249] i915 0000:00:02.0: fb0: inteldrmfb frame buffer device
[    3.674306] [drm] Initialized i915 1.6.0 20080730 for 0000:00:02.0 on minor 0
[  801.461277] [drm:ivb_err_int_handler] *ERROR* Pipe A FIFO underrun
[  801.461287] [drm:cpt_serr_int_handler] *ERROR* PCH transcoder A FIFO underrun

Tried fluxbox and same result with little flickering.
Just for more clarity, here is how it actually look like(for me it happens in intervals and can be any screen at a time):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NES1rgwNyc

Will try Tearfree, if that helps. But i am sure it will be the same.

nonamefantasy · 2014-06-30 15:02:22

Hm... Our problems are different.

You can downgrade with

downgrade xf86-video-intel

That was helping for me at least. Maybe for you too.

You mean tearfree setting in xorg conf? It seems that it is for video playing.

Arch Linux

#1 2014-06-30 00:21:59

Screen flickring/blinking on intel 4000 card with dual monitors

#2 2014-06-30 02:28:01

Re: Screen flickring/blinking on intel 4000 card with dual monitors

#3 2014-06-30 02:47:06

Re: Screen flickring/blinking on intel 4000 card with dual monitors

#4 2014-06-30 08:47:20

Re: Screen flickring/blinking on intel 4000 card with dual monitors

#5 2014-06-30 14:40:48

Re: Screen flickring/blinking on intel 4000 card with dual monitors

#6 2014-06-30 15:02:22

Re: Screen flickring/blinking on intel 4000 card with dual monitors

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