Flickering (terminal+X): HP Zbook Create G7

CountZukula · 2021-02-22 15:29:29

Trouble never comes alone, they say. I'm seeing a weird flicker on this Zbook, which is hard to describe properly as it's happening pretty fast (single frame, maybe a couple).

- it appears as if the whole content is drawn in the top half of the screen
- sometimes two flickers happen seconds apart, sometimes minutes apart
- Windows does not exhibit issues: I have disabled the GPU to see if that had any effect but haven't seen flickering so far
- flickering happens in terminal (harder to see as there's less content) and X
- saw flickers with both Nouveau and Nvidia

Any ideas or tips?

lspci -nn

00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation 10th Gen Core Processor Host Bridge/DRAM Registers [8086:9b44] (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 6th-9th Gen Core Processor PCIe Controller (x16) [8086:1901] (rev 02)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation UHD Graphics [8086:9bc4] (rev 05)
00:04.0 Signal processing controller [1180]: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v5/E3-1500 v5/6th Gen Core Processor Thermal Subsystem [8086:1903] (rev 02)
00:12.0 Signal processing controller [1180]: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCH Thermal Controller [8086:06f9]
00:14.0 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation Comet Lake USB 3.1 xHCI Host Controller [8086:06ed]
00:14.2 RAM memory [0500]: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCH Shared SRAM [8086:06ef]
00:14.3 Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCH CNVi WiFi [8086:06f0]
00:15.0 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCH Serial IO I2C Controller #0 [8086:06e8]
00:15.1 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCH Serial IO I2C Controller #1 [8086:06e9]
00:16.0 Communication controller [0780]: Intel Corporation Comet Lake HECI Controller [8086:06e0]
00:16.3 Serial controller [0700]: Intel Corporation Device [8086:06e3]
00:1c.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation Device [8086:06ba] (rev f0)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation Device [8086:06bc] (rev f0)
00:1d.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCI Express Root Port #9 [8086:06b0] (rev f0)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation Device [8086:068e]
00:1f.3 Multimedia audio controller [0401]: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCH cAVS [8086:06c8]
00:1f.4 SMBus [0c05]: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCH SMBus Controller [8086:06a3]
00:1f.5 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel Corporation Comet Lake PCH SPI Controller [8086:06a4]
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: NVIDIA Corporation TU106M [GeForce RTX 2070 Mobile / Max-Q Refresh] [10de:1f14] (rev a1)
01:00.1 Audio device [0403]: NVIDIA Corporation TU106 High Definition Audio Controller [10de:10f9] (rev a1)
01:00.2 USB controller [0c03]: NVIDIA Corporation TU106 USB 3.1 Host Controller [10de:1ada] (rev a1)
01:00.3 Serial bus controller [0c80]: NVIDIA Corporation TU106 USB Type-C UCSI Controller [10de:1adb] (rev a1)
02:00.0 Unassigned class [ff00]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTS525A PCI Express Card Reader [10ec:525a] (rev 01)
03:00.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation JHL7540 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Titan Ridge 4C 2018] [8086:15ea] (rev 06)
04:00.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation JHL7540 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Titan Ridge 4C 2018] [8086:15ea] (rev 06)
04:01.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation JHL7540 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Titan Ridge 4C 2018] [8086:15ea] (rev 06)
04:02.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation JHL7540 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Titan Ridge 4C 2018] [8086:15ea] (rev 06)
04:04.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation JHL7540 Thunderbolt 3 Bridge [Titan Ridge 4C 2018] [8086:15ea] (rev 06)
05:00.0 System peripheral [0880]: Intel Corporation JHL7540 Thunderbolt 3 NHI [Titan Ridge 4C 2018] [8086:15eb] (rev 06)
39:00.0 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation JHL7540 Thunderbolt 3 USB Controller [Titan Ridge 4C 2018] [8086:15ec] (rev 06)
6d:00.0 Non-Volatile memory controller [0108]: Micron Technology Inc Device [1344:5405]

CountZukula · 2021-02-23 15:16:39

A small update, perhaps this rings a bell to anyone.

I have tried setting i915.enable_psr=0, to no avail. This results in my screen being drawn in the top half, with the bottom half washed out white (as described here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/in … flickering, screenshot below). Perhaps related to the fact that I'm seeing the flicker happen in the top half?

Something else I have seen is that, upon opening, firefox did not render its bottom half of the window. Instead, the vertical scrollbar of the website was drawn in the top half of the screen. The bottom half of the firefox window was completely blank. As if the screen compositor / X (?) only got half of the available height reported? Shamefully, I did not screen capture that situation, and I'm not sure I'll be able to see it again.

Tried setting kernel loglevel=7 / no quiet, but there is no log output during a flicker (in dmesg / journalctl / Xorg.log).

https://i.imgur.com/bucJERg.jpg

Mod edit: Replaced oversized image with a link -- V1del

Last edited by V1del (2021-02-23 15:35:23)

V1del · 2021-02-23 15:38:03

Please don't embed huge images directly. Try enabling early KMS for i915: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ke … _KMS_start

CountZukula · 2021-02-23 20:08:03

Added MODULES=(i915) to /etc/mkinitcpio.conf, then ran mkinitcpio -P, then rebooted. Didn't help, still seeing the flickers. I checked whether intel_gpa was loaded beforehand, which is not the case in my system.

For what it's worth, I tried to verify that the issue I'm seeing is how I'm describing it (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UujbsT … sp=sharing). There's one instance of the flicker present in this video, where it's clear (if you squint and replay the specific second a couple of times) the whole content is drawn on the top 1/3 of the screen (squashed vertically).

Small update: I have tested Ubuntu and I'm seeing the same behaviour there (i915/nouveau). BIOS is updated.

Last edited by CountZukula (2021-02-24 12:42:31)

CountZukula · 2021-03-05 18:37:27

As it's been a while since I've found something new here, I thought I'd bump the topic. Perhaps this is a red herring, but I've seen in my dmesg log (see below, filtered for "i915") that i915 firmware is being loaded that might not correspond to the right processor. Perhaps this can be confirmed here?

[    0.971835] i915 0000:00:02.0: [drm] VT-d active for gfx access
[    0.971954] i915 0000:00:02.0: vgaarb: deactivate vga console
[    0.983181] i915 0000:00:02.0: vgaarb: changed VGA decodes: olddecodes=io+mem,decodes=none:owns=io+mem
[    0.983637] i915 0000:00:02.0: [drm] Finished loading DMC firmware i915/kbl_dmc_ver1_04.bin (v1.4)
[    2.136737] [drm] Initialized i915 1.6.0 20201103 for 0000:00:02.0 on minor 0
[    2.151416] fbcon: i915drmfb (fb0) is primary device
[    2.189520] i915 0000:00:02.0: [drm] fb0: i915drmfb frame buffer device
[    2.646670] Modules linked in: tpm_tis(+) tpm_tis_core fjes(-) tpm int3400_thermal acpi_cpufreq(-) intel_hid acpi_thermal_rel mac_hid hp_wireless rng_core sparse_keymap acpi_pad vboxnetflt(OE) vboxnetadp(OE) vboxdrv(OE) fuse crypto_user bpf_preload ip_tables x_tables btrfs blake2b_generic libcrc32c crc32c_generic xor raid6_pq rtsx_pci_sdmmc mmc_core crc32c_intel serio_raw rtsx_pci xhci_pci xhci_pci_renesas i915 video intel_gtt i2c_algo_bit drm_kms_helper syscopyarea sysfillrect sysimgblt fb_sys_fops cec drm agpgart
[    3.312549] mei_hdcp 0000:00:16.0-b638ab7e-94e2-4ea2-a552-d1c54b627f04: bound 0000:00:02.0 (ops i915_hdcp_component_ops [i915])
[    3.377298] sof-audio-pci 0000:00:1f.3: bound 0000:00:02.0 (ops i915_audio_component_bind_ops [i915])
[ 8078.180641] mei_hdcp 0000:00:16.0-b638ab7e-94e2-4ea2-a552-d1c54b627f04: bound 0000:00:02.0 (ops i915_hdcp_component_ops [i915])
[ 8851.669742] i915 0000:00:02.0: [drm] *ERROR* Atomic update failure on pipe A (start=8 end=9) time 299 us, min 1073, max 1079, scanline start 1068, end 1089
[ 8866.962611] i915 0000:00:02.0: [drm] *ERROR* Atomic update failure on pipe A (start=23 end=24) time 363 us, min 1073, max 1079, scanline start 1062, end 1084
[ 8898.744015] i915 0000:00:02.0: [drm] *ERROR* Atomic update failure on pipe A (start=31 end=32) time 236 us, min 1073, max 1079, scanline start 1072, end 1087

The processor is a i9-10885H, which should be a comet lake CPU. As I understand, i915/kbl_dmc_ver1_04.bin is meant for kabylake, whereas the i915/cml*.bin files are meant for comet lake? Could this be a possible cause for the flicker?

zaptorjezus# bsdtar -Oxf /boot/intel-ucode.img | iucode_tool -tb -lS -
iucode_tool: system has processor(s) with signature 0x000a0652
microcode bundle 1: (stdin)
selected microcodes:
  001/190: sig 0x000a0652, pf_mask 0x20, 2020-07-08, rev 0x00e0, size 93184
  001/191: sig 0x000a0653, pf_mask 0x22, 2020-07-08, rev 0x00e0, size 94208
  001/192: sig 0x000a0655, pf_mask 0x22, 2020-07-08, rev 0x00e0, size 93184
zaptorjezus# grep microcode /proc/cpuinfo
microcode	: 0xe2
microcode	: 0xe2
microcode	: 0xe2
microcode	: 0xe2
microcode	: 0xe2
microcode	: 0xe2
microcode	: 0xe2
microcode	: 0xe2
microcode	: 0xe2
microcode	: 0xe2
microcode	: 0xe2
microcode	: 0xe2
microcode	: 0xe2
microcode	: 0xe2
microcode	: 0xe2
microcode	: 0xe2

:edit: added some info that was suggested on the wiki with regards to intel microcode, might be relevant

Last edited by CountZukula (2021-03-05 18:51:05)

Arch Linux

#1 2021-02-22 15:29:29

Flickering (terminal+X): HP Zbook Create G7

#2 2021-02-23 15:16:39

Re: Flickering (terminal+X): HP Zbook Create G7

#3 2021-02-23 15:38:03

Re: Flickering (terminal+X): HP Zbook Create G7

#4 2021-02-23 20:08:03

Re: Flickering (terminal+X): HP Zbook Create G7

#5 2021-03-05 18:37:27

Re: Flickering (terminal+X): HP Zbook Create G7

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